


Violets, Violins, Violence

by harleygirl2648



Series: Who Is In Control? [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Anger, BAMF Clarice Starling, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Curses, Dark Will Graham, Deal with a Devil, F/F, Genderbending, Hannibal is Hannibal, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Manipulative Hannibal, Manipulative Will Graham, Mind Games, Movie: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Murder Husbands, Mythology References, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Puns & Word Play, Reunions, Sexual Harassment, Silence of the Lambs References, Swearing, Will Graham Helps Himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-01-17 04:25:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12357420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harleygirl2648/pseuds/harleygirl2648
Summary: Saw the darkest hearts of manAnd I saw myself starin' back againAnd I saw myself starin' back again-Bartholemew, The Silent ComedyLet's say a hypothetical season 4 or 5.Clarice Starling is the next to inherit the curse of Jack Crawford's profiling position, but she's not going to go down quietly. She's going to save the day, damn the consequences. But it's harder than it seems.The monster in the maze is a gentleman, the wolf in sheep's clothing is hidden deep in the woods in a clearing, and they're both chained up with muzzles across their mouths.Never,everkeep mad dogs chained up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! I've written an SOTL AU before, but I came up with another one and I had to start writing it! I hope you enjoy this familiar little adventure, and we are going to have some good, funny times, aren't we? (oh god don't quote Verger right now WE'RE BEING SERIOUS)
> 
> Here's my personal fancast for this AU, but feel free to use your own!
> 
> Clarice Starling - Willa Holland
> 
> Ardelia Mapp - Kiersey Clemmons
> 
> Dr. Nova Pilcher (changed from Noble Pilcher in the novel and movie because why not) - Q'orianka Kilcher

“...and as of now, the FBI currently has no leads on the serial killer the press has unfortunately dubbed Buffalo Bill, however we are looking into other methods of finding him, behavioral analysis being one of them,” Jack concludes, looking out over his podium at the crowd of students. They were all trainees, brand new, the light and hope and fascination shining in their eyes. Nothing was so terrible it hadn’t clouded their vision yet. “Any questions?” he asks.

A young man in a casual gray suit raises a hand. “Why is the FBI so reluctant to call the killer Buffalo Bill? It seems to me that there aren’t any other names being presented.”

“Buffalo Bill is a crude name given by the press to sell more copies of the story,” Jack said sharply, then nodding in the direction of another young man, in a linen button-down. “You have a question.”

“Yes. I was wondering if the FBI had considered examining the river water to see how long-”

“She was dead before she was placed in the water, and yes, the water washed away the time of death. Could have been days or weeks. Anyone else?”

There’s a long, pregnant pause in the air, when right in the middle of the left section, a hand is tentatively raised. Jack nods, “Go ahead.”

It’s a young woman this time. Neat brown hair, a pale blue blouse, and her hand, when lowered, is folded against the other in her lap.

“Has the BAU come to a conclusion of the victim pattern of Buffalo Bill?”

Jack cocks his head, just slightly. “Elaborate.”

She takes a deep breath. “Buffalo Bill has a tendency to go after young women, all Caucasian, and all larger, so to speak. Each woman had a different skin area removed, and all dumped afterwards.”

“So what are you implying?”

“I think that he’s treating them as objects,” she says clearly, ignoring the looks she’s getting from the other students around her. “They’re not people to him. More like... _livestock,_ to be crude.”

Jack doesn’t say anything for five entire seconds, then says, leaning into the microphone, “That’s excellent deductive reasoning. I’d like to speak with you afterwards.”

She nods, and says nothing else.

There’s a visible shift in the audience now, in their perception of her, and the ones directly around her make no attempt to even smile at her.

Jack watches as she makes her way to the front, as the other students all stay clear out of her way as she walks down the stairs, and purposefully does not turn back as they all stare at her, before filing out until it’s just the two of them.

“That was excellent work,” Jack says, shuffling his papers and coming down off the stage, and stands before her. He can see her eyes now, they are gray. And serious. “I wonder if you’d like to perhaps consult on the case with my team. Help me with the psychological profile. I’ll speak with your instructors.”

“I’d be honored, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

The barest hint of a smile pulls at the corners of her lips. “Clarice Starling, sir.”

 

As soon as her classmates got wind of Clarice’s new position, as Jack Crawford’s new profiler, she stopped getting invited places. To study groups, to the bars on Fridays, even to some birthdays. She stopped having people willingly pairing up with her during the physical training, she stopped talking with anyone after class aside from Ardelia.

Knowing why doesn't really take the sting out of the burn, though. And yes, she knew damn well the reason.

She was the next one to inherit the curse of Crawford’s profiler position, a favorite Quantico urban legend.

The students had discussed the curse at great length after classes, especially leading up to Crawford's talk. They’d done independent research on Miriam Lass after briefly hearing her name in a lecture when the agent slipped up and spoke her name before hurriedly backtracking.

Miriam Lass: a student, a budding profiler, on her way to being one of the finest agents in recent years, and Crawford took her out of class to borrow her talents in catching the Ripper.

Then she was gone. She had been lost, considered dead and stamped with an EXPIRED sticker and moved on, and when she was finally found again in a hole in the ground, she was just a shell. A husk of what she used to be. Everything had been drained out when her arm was taken, her mind rearranged by Hannibal Lecter until she couldn’t even see his face in her memory. After Lecter got away the first time, she had gone into intensive therapy, and had slowly rebuilt her life, far away from the FBI. Far as anyone knew, as soon as she got a hefty settlement, she was out of there, out on the West Coast, and trying to start over

Then there was _Will Graham._

The biggest legend of the FBI. If Miriam Lass was a cautionary tale, then Will Graham was a flat-out warning of what happens when you get in the mind of a killer and can't find your way back out.

Will Graham, who was a goddamn legend among profilers and the FBI in general, was plucked from his teaching position in order to first find the Minnesota Shrike and then Crawford’s white whale, the Chesapeake Ripper.

And boy, did he find him.

In the process he lost his reputation, his sanity, any semblance of a family, and finally his life.

Will Graham fell from grace from that cliffside like Lucifer fell from heaven, and it was still speculation as to whether he fell willingly or he was dragged into the darkness kicking and screaming.

But Clarice had accepted her position with grace and strength, knowing this could really move her career forward. She had a spotless record, high grades, some of the best marksmanship in her section, and she was eager. She had her life ahead of her, and she was ready to go further. She was going to come out of this fine.

“You never know, Starling,” Jameson, one of the cocky guys in her classes, said, his breath reeking of the tuna fish sandwich from the mess hall. “Crawford’s got a habit of chewing up trainees and spitting them out. Or, well, _Lecter_ sure does.”

“Hannibal Lecter is locked up in the BSHCI, yet again,” Clarice said back, a fake smile plastered on as she crumpled up her Fritos bag in her fist. “I really doubt Agent Crawford is going to smear the FBI’s reputation even further by pulling a move like that.”

It was true. Recently there had been a leak to the press that Hannibal Lecter had actually been found and recaptured, after the FBI had apparently covered up the recapture months ago. The leak was all over the tabloids, and decidedly skipped over by the lecturers when asked about the events by students. As though just bringing up the name would conjure up the man himself.

“Maybe,” Jameson said, throwing his sandwich wrapper at the trashcan. It missed. “Hope you don’t scare easily, Starling.”

Clarice hid her smile behind her to-go cup of black coffee. “Not yet, I don’t.”

 

Jack Crawford drops a thick binder onto her side of his desk, hard enough that the metal rings creaked under the strain. Hannibal Lecter’s unreadable expression stared back at her from the picture on the cover. Clarice ignored her heart stuttering in her chest.

“What’s this for, sir?” she asks politely, trying not to let anything show.

“This Friday,” Jack says, folding his hands in front of him, a stern expression on his face. “You will be interviewing Hannibal Lecter, to ask for his insight into the Buffalo Bill case. We have hit a dead end, and this is our last resort.”

Clarice fought back all of the emotions bubbling up in her throat, and forced them back down.

“I know this sounds foolish, but we have nothing at this point. Even less than what I gave in the lecture, some leads panned out to nothing. You’re going in on Friday. Call if you have any questions.

He turns back to his computer to read an email on, and then looks back at Clarice. “You can go,” he nods, as though he hasn’t delivered a crushing blow. “Get some rest.”

It just feels like she just watched her future shatter in front of her like a windshield in a car crash.

“Is this why you pulled me out of class?” Clarice asked quietly, forcing down the tears that threaten to spill over as she dug her fingernails into the arm of her chair. “Just to-”

“I pulled you out of class because of your potential,” Jack snaps, harsher than necessary, so he restrains himself. “And I know that you have the potential to be an excellent agent and - ”

Clarice stares back into the Chesapeake Ripper’s eyes, and feels her stomach turn over. “And because Hannibal Lecter loves to see potential. And if he’s going to talk, he wants -  _fresh meat.”_

Jack looks back up, ready to argue, but she gets up first, clutching the binder to her chest. “Excuse me,” she says, barely above a whisper, and heads right out the door to his office, not caring that the door slams behind her. She keeps the binder close to her chest, and walks through the hallway of the FBI with tears brimming in her eyes, threatening to fall. Everyone stays out of her way, having watched her leave her sentencing in Jack Crawford’s office and the eyes of a killer peeking out from a binder as she walks by.

As soon as she makes it into her car, she throws the binder in the passenger seat, braces her arms over the steering wheel, and sobs.

 _I wasn’t chosen because he wants me to save any more girls from their fates,_ she thinks through shuddering breaths and smeared blush. _I was chosen to be fed to the monster in the labyrinth. Sacrifice, penance, for someone else’s sins._

 _It's not fucking fair,_ comes out of her mouth in a silent scream.

The tears are still streaming from her eyes when she gets back home to Ardelia, who looks up from her work and instantly slams her book shut. “Clarice? Oh my god, what’s - ”

Clarice opens her mouth to tell her but only another sob comes out, and she clasps her hands over her face, letting her shoulder bag drop onto the ground. The Lecture binder clips pop open and papers spill out. Ardelia got up from her chair and hurried over to embrace her, to try and calm her down. “Clarice, listen to me, you’re okay, you’re okay, breathe, breathe, I need you to breathe, okay?”

Clarice couldn’t stop crying, it was like a faucet had been turned on and the sink was running over. She couldn’t stop and didn’t want to. She’s been holding it back for too long.

Ardelia just sat with her right there on the floor of their terrible apartment, on the ugly mauve-colored cheap carpeting, her arms around her and not letting go.

“Girl, you’re safe here. In here, you’re safe. Now, just take some deep breaths, and calm down, okay?”

It took longer than Clarice wanted, but she managed to stop sobbing enough that just tears were streaming, so she was just sniffling and able to sit in a chair with her head in her arms against the cool wood of the table.

A cup of blueberry tea steeped with cacao nibs was set in front of her, freshly made, and Ardelia sat down in front of her. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” she asked softly.

Clarice laughed, something cold and bitter with no humor to it. She swallowed once, stirring the spoon in her tea. “Jameson was right; I’m the next one to be fed to the monster in the maze.”

Ardelia’s eyes darted over to the spilled files on the floor, then back to Clarice, looking almost startled. “You mean-”

“Friday afternoon, he’s sending me in there, to talk to -”

“Lecter,” Ardelia breathed out, then sneered, “If Crawford's the head of Behavioral Sciences then he should know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and fucking over again. Clarice, you can’t-”

“I have to go,” Clarice said softly, taking a long sip of the tea. “We’re running out of time, Bill’s going to get another one and I can't - I can't let that happen, Ardelia. I - I _can’t._ I have to go.”

Ardelia looked down, the way you always look down in West Virginia when someone mentions that someone ‘has passed.’ Then she got up, and walked over to her bedroom, and Clarice could hear her rummaging around for something.

She got up from the table and went over to the window, opening it and taking a cigarette from  her purse. She lit it, took a drag, and breathed the smoke and her problems out the window. The ash dropped onto the windowsill, blowing away in the soft breeze.

She finished the cigarette just as Ardelia came back into the room, holding something in her hand. She put out the stub on the windowsill and flicked it away, turning back to Ardelia with a weak smile.

“What's up?”

Ardelia opened her hand to reveal a small ball of leftover yellow yarn. She’d used it when she was knitting a scarf a while back, and she stepped closer now, and pressed the soft yarn into Clarice’s hand, curling her fingers around it. It smelled like the violet hand cream Ardelia’s grandma sent from back home, and she used it all the time.

“For your meeting,” she said finally. “So you can stay grounded.”

Clarice nodded, getting up and hugging her tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered. Ardelia smiled, hugging her back just as tightly.

 

 

Later that night, Clarice turned on a bedside lamp in her room, and surveyed the piles of photos and reports and testimonies and recipes. It made her a little sick to her stomach, but she treated it as an inoculation. A little pain and sickness to dull herself to a greater pain. She was armoring himself in questions and facts and and a small ball of yellow yarn.

 _You aren’t going to be their martyr,_ she firmly told herself. _You’re going to stare into that abyss and **dare** it to stare back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarice meets the monster in the maze, but he's not the worst obstacle to face. Not in the least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you're familiar with SOTL this is going very by the book in this chapter. We will deviate quite a bit in incoming chapters with material and references and characters, but I wanted a familiar setup before we go a little mad. Enjoy!

_Here we are,_ Clarice thought when she stepped inside the BSHCI and let the door close behind her. She felt small in her loose, hand-me-down good clothes and worn saddle bag and fear quickening her heart. _Straight into the lion's den._

She found her guide waiting for her at the front, and he started to guide her to Chilton's office.

“Lecter’s in the back half of the hospital, Chilton wants him as far away from everyone as possible” the disinterested intern tells Clarice as they head through the hallway. “Sometimes he gets to stretch his legs, he’s spoken to another patient or two, but most of the time we keep ‘im locked up in the back.”

She nods, just as disinterested, more focused on the cold stone walls and the sterile smell of soap and state air. Her brown suit jacket is the best she has, and she feels like she’s wearing a costume, the armor of someone else who knows what they’re supposed to be doing and she feels lost inside of it. The hallways seemingly have no end, all the twists and turns and nothing but cold walls and murmurings of the patients. They all stare at her as she walks along, as though she’s the animal in the zoo to gawk at behind the bars.

_She doesn’t fit here, she’s new. She doesn't know how it works around here._

Clarice was startled when one of them hisses from his cell, “Heyyyyyyy, HEEYYYYYYYYY.”

She makes the mistake of turning to look in his direction and something wet is flung in her direction. A drop or two lands on a strand of her hair and some lands on her neck.

“Suck my cock, you fucking bitch!” the man shrieks as he laughs. “I can smell your cuuuuunt.”

The intern bangs a hand against the bars. “Miggs! Back off! Fuck, man, now you’re not gettin’ out for a break today. You’re going to stay in there, hear me?”

Miggs hisses again and scurries back to his cot, mumbling to himself. The intern turns back to her, looking less than sympathetic.

“Sorry, ma’am, he just acts up like that sometimes. He hasn’t jizzed on anyone in-”

“I’d just like to be escorted to a bathroom, please,” Clarice says in a strained voice, already fed up with this whole excursion, and she hasn’t even made it to Lecter yet. The intern nods, and lets her use the employee washroom, one stall and one sink.

She stares at her reflection as she uses the cheap hand soap to scrub at that strand of her hair, before growling in defeat and yanking out the contaminated hairs. Her hand shakes as she scrubs at the skin on her neck. She wants - she _needs_ a cigarette.

It has to wait.

A few angry tears run down her face before she can stop them, and a drop of her mascara runs with them, streaking her face with black. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she washes her face with a scratchy paper towel and presses one soaked in cold water to her eyes, blinking afterwards to hide any trace of redness. She reapplies the mascara, blinks again, takes another deep breath as she closes her eyes. Then she reopens them, glares at her reflection, nods once, picks her brown saddle bag back up, and pushes the door back open to the intern leaning on the opposite wall.

“You alright?” he asks. Clarice makes herself smile.

“Yes, thank you. If we could continue?”

They’re exactly two minutes late when they make it to Dr. Chilton’s office, and he’s waiting impatiently out in front of it, arms crossed.

“You’re late,” are the first words out of his mouth.

“There was a problem, sir, Miggs-”

“Yes, I’ll hear about it later, he’s waiting. Thank you, Jonathan,” Chilton says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “This way, Miss Sterling.”

“It’s _Star_ ling, sir, Clarice Starling,” Clarice clarifies as she follows him down yet another twisty corridor.

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” Chilton says, but he’s not sincere. He’s jumpy, nervous, with a thick coating of smug superiority to cover it up. “You’re late, and Hannibal Lecter does not approve of tardiness in the slightest.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she apologizes, trying to hide the burn of embarrassment crawling up the back of her neck. “It won’t happen again.”

“I would hope not,” Chilton says, very close to an outright snap. “Are you armed?” he asks suddenly. “You’ll have to check it at the security point.”

“No, sir,” she answers back. Oh, there’s a caution there, a new kind of nervousness.

_(She’s read up on Miriam Lass, she’s read up how Chilton was framed, she’s read up on how Miriam looked at Chilton and saw her captor and took her vengeance into her own hands.)_

Chilton looks almost the same, in Clarice’s eyes, if not - slightly _off._ Like the image presented is not what's actually underneath all of the surgery and paint and prosthetics.

“I need to see your credentials,” Chilton declares, bringing her back to the present. Clarice is confused.

“But sir, you know why I'm-”

“I need to view them, and your bag will be checked,” Chilton says crisply as they arrive at the checkpoint. Clarice puts her bag up on the counter and lets the guards search through it, pulling out everything from her lipstick to her credentials to the bottle of aspirin she’s needed lately.

“Your coat, hand it over for examination,” one of the guards says, “And empty your pockets.”

Clarice pulls out a paper clip, some lint, and a receipt from the gas station from her skirt pocket, while she leaves the little ball of yellow yarn hidden in the corner.

They don’t need to take her one sense of comfort away.

“Coat,” one of the guards reminds. She nods and takes her coat off, wanting to hide from all the pairs of eyes watching her do so. She hands the coat over to a guard and flinches when she hears Chilton’s voice behind her, but on the opposite side from before and much closer.

“While you’re here, I’ll go over the rules,” he says in a slick voice that makes her uncomfortable. “You do not touch the glass. You do not approach the glass. You do not tell him anything personal. You do not pass him anything other than the file that has already been removed of everything other than soft paper and photographs. Use the sliding slot to give him the file. Do not accept anything he gives you. You have already been informed of your allowed amount of time?”

“Yes sir.”

“And been shown why we take such precautions, what happened to the _last_ person who slipped up in handling Lecter? Oh, I don’t know if Jack informed you, but they managed to save her right eye. The left one and the nose were a lost cause.”

“Yes sir, I have been briefed.”

“Good,” he smiles, and she turns away from his voice to accept her coat back. And as she puts it on, she hears a sly, “Well, he hasn’t had such a _lovely_ visitor like yourself since his arrival. Will you be in Baltimore long?”

_Fuck. This. And. You._ Clarice thinks, but stops the words from escaping her mouth.

“Unfortunately not, doctor, I don’t plan on staying in Baltimore any longer than _absolutely_ necessary,” Clarice said, much sharper than she intended as she turned to look him straight in the eyes and picked her bag back up. She tried not to roll them as Chilton looked her up and down yet again before forcing out a smile and motioning for the guards to unlock the door.

“You’re in luck, Miss Starling,” he sneers, voice dripping with condescension, “Pretty, brunette, a little rough around the edges, _and_ unofficial FBI personnel. You’re _just_ his taste, so to speak.”

The door slid open, and Clarice set her jaw as Chilton stepped forward. “Actually, doctor,” she offers, clinging to her last shred of politeness. “If Dr. Lecter considers you his nemesis-” _(he doesn’t, Clarice knows this, but flattery is a weakness of Chilton’s. She knows this, too)_ “-and considering the FBI really needs his input on the case, maybe it would be easier if I finished the walk by myself. To ease the tension, so to speak.”

Chilton looks her over one last time, and she fights the urge to cross her arms and break the eye contact.

“I wish you’d told me that earlier, then I wouldn’t have had to make the trip down here,” he complained with an eyeroll that he didn’t bother to hide. Clarice gritted her teeth down even further.

“Then I wouldn’t have enjoyed your company,” she said through her teeth. Chilton’s smile in return was glaringly fake, and the distaste was present on both of their expressions before he turned around on his heels and walked away from her.

“On your way,” he says with another wave of his hand. The guards nod to her, and one gives her the directions:

“Go down to the last door. Take two rights and one left, and there he is.”

Clarice nods back to them before stepping through the door and into the hallway. The door closed behind her and she was alone in the low light as she walked down the corridor. Two rights, one left.

She follows the path, her hand on her ball of yarn the entire time, and she only lets go when she’s almost at the door, the light of the cell brighter there than around her. Her hand faintly smells of violets and Ardelia and good memories and she takes one last deep breath before finally standing in front of the cell.

And there he was.

Hannibal Lecter. Chesapeake Ripper. Devil incarnate.

And he was just… _standing_ there, in front of the desk in his cell, smiling at her as though they were having a pleasant business meeting over lunch, not through bulletproof glass and only a few airholes and a slot between them.

“Good afternoon,” he greets, all pleasant and seemingly sincere. “Jack Crawford sent you, didn’t he?”

“Yes sir,” Clarice answered, standing straight and maintain her eye contact. “My name is Clarice Starling.”

“Would you mind if I saw your credentials?” Hannibal asks. “Frederick would not inform me who my visitor would be today, and that they would be _late.”_

“I apologize, sir, I had to deal with an altercation,” Clarice says, taking out her badge. She holds it up.

“A little closer, if you please,” Hannibal asks, tilting his head to the side.

“I’m not supposed to approach the glass, Dr. Lecter.”

“And _I_ was not told that my guest would be exactly seven minutes late to a seemingly crucial interview. _Closer,_ please,” Hannibal insists. Clarice takes a few steps closer, and each step of hers is met with a step by Hannibal until they are only a foot away from the glass. He reads over the badge, and looks up, a glint in his eye.

“You’re not _real_ FBI, are you, Clarice?”

“I’m a student at the Academy, Doctor,” she confesses, placing the badge back into her bag. “Jack Crawford selected me from class to speak with you.”

“He does have a habit of that,” Hannibal concedes. “Now tell me, Clarice: why were you late to speak with me?”

“I ran into an altercation as I was making my way into the hospital, sir. I’ve already apologized,” Clarice admits as she takes out the file and makes her way over to the sliding glass slot. She stops when Hannibal moves to follow her.

“Tell me, what happened? Was it Frederick, an orderly, another patient, perhaps?”

Clarice bites her lip and says nothing. Sensing this, Hannibal raises his hands in a gesture of good faith and stops his attempt to move towards her.

“I’ll wait here if you tell me what's made you upset, Clarice. You look tough, not a lot affects you.” A pause. “Perhaps Frederick’s face began to melt again?”

Now she’s biting her lip not to laugh, and she keeps it down as she can tell he’s amused with himself, smiling gently at her. She steps towards the slot and passes the file through it. “No, sir, it wasn’t Dr. Chilton.”

“Apparently not. Please, have a seat,” he gestures towards a folding chair placed in the middle of the room.

Clarice nods. “Thank you,” she accepts as she sits down on that chair. Hannibal goes over to the slot and retrieves the file before going back to the desk. He looks over at her.

“Well, Clarice, what made you late today?”

She gives in with an inaudible sigh. Give a little, get a little. “A patient assaulted me and I took a few moments to collect myself.”

Hannibal’s interest spikes. “Who, if I may ask?”

“Miggs.”

“Ah, yes. He is rather crass. What did he say to you, Clarice? What did he _do?”_

Clarice curls her nails into her hand, leaving little half-moons in her palm. She grits her teeth for a brief second and then stares straight into Hannibal Lecter’s eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line and ready for him to push back.

“He said, _‘suck my cock, you fucking bitch. I can smell your cunt.’_ And then he threw his semen at me.”

Hannibal cocked his head to the right a little, the slightest appearance of a frown on his face as his eyes narrowed. It's such a small tick, but it speaks volumes: he's pissed off.“How vile. Rudeness is unspeakable to me, you know. This shouldn’t be tolerated in the slightest. I’ll have something done about it, Clarice, mark my words.” He looked her over again, not in a leering way like Chilton or Miggs, but in a simple once-over, as if to assure that she truly was alright. “And if it sets your mind at ease,” he offers, “I only smell Suave apple shampoo and conditioner, Citron de Vigne shower gel, and Degree deodorant. And occasionally you wear Marc Jacobs’ Daisy for special occasions,” he smiles, before taking a seat at his desk. “Not today, however.”

Clarice cleared her throat, and crossed her legs before nodding curtly. “That’s very accurate, Doctor.”

“One of my best talents. But please, you are here for a reason, yes?”

“Yes sir, I’d like you to read over this case file and perhaps come up with some answers about the serial killer dubbed ‘Buffalo Bill’ by the press.”

“Miss Lounds came up with that, yes?” Hannibal asked, opening the file and beginning to sort through the many documents and pictures.

“I - I don’t know, sir.”

“She's very apt at bestowing epithets, a gift of hers, no doubt,” Hannibal says, removing one picture from the pile and examining it. Then he lets it fall from his fingers so he can clasp his hands together and turn his full attention to her. He notes with satisfaction that she matches the eye contact and doesn’t waver. “However, Clarice, I think we ought to know each other first.”

“I’ve read your file, doctor, I’m acquainted.”

“But I don’t know you yet, Clarice. So I’ll start with my own questions.” There’s a spark to Hannibal’s eyes that Clarice can see from her chair. She braces for the onslaught, but it’s only one simple question: “What’s the _worst_ memory you have from your childhood?”

She bites her lip without thinking, then stops just as suddenly. “The death of my father,” she confesses quietly, but she doesn't sound ashamed.

“Was he a miner? Your accent is distinctly West Virginia. You can't shake it off, much like your smoking habit.”

Clarice shakes her head, and tries to ignore the thorough examination.“No, my father was the sheriff. He surprised a burglar, got shot. He lasted for about a month before he passed.”

“My condolences, of course."

“It was eighteen years ago, Doctor, it - it isn't relevant."

“Clarice, I have personally inflicted _and_ experienced many different forms of pain in this life. And I've found that there is no greater pain than a heartbreak or a loss.” Something almost like a human emotion crosses his face before it disappears again.

She nods again and steels herself back up. Hannibal Lecter enjoys walking the line. It doesn’t mean he's sincere.

“This case,” Hannibal says, picking the picture back up again, “is rather interesting. I should like another day or so to mull it over.”

“Time is precious, doctor, we-”

“It is, isn’t it? A _very_ precious thing. Tell me, Clarice, why does this case matter so much to you?”

Clarice shrugged. “I was told this would advance my career, and I jumped at the chance.”

“Hmm,” Hannibal hummed, looking her over again, seemingly interested. It was difficult to decide of that was a positive or a negative. “You _jumped_ at the chance, Clarice? I doubt that.”

“You don't think I wanted a chance to accelerate my career in the FBI?”

“Between us, Clarice, Jack and Frederick cannot accelerate anyone’s career, they hit their relative peaks a while back. But no, Clarice, you were _hesitant_ to start on this journey, weren’t you? You were hesitant to come here.”

Clarice’s hand reaches into her pocket and rubs the ball of yellow yarn between her fingers. “Yes,” she admits. She hates herself for admitting this shred of weakness.

That’s what Lecter wanted. That’s what he thrives on.

Hannibal cocks his head to the side and smiles at her. “Don’t be discouraged, Clarice. The first step in a hero’s journey is an initial refusal of the call. You refused your call, and yet here you are, on your way. A noble cause, no doubt.”

Clarice stood up then, having checked her watch and seen that her time was up. She wanted to be out of here before Chilton came down to fetch her. “Thank you, Dr. Lecter. I’m sure you’ll let the FBI know if-”

“Oh, no, Clarice, I’m only considering this matter for _your_ sake. It doesn’t matter to me if the FBI catches Bill or not. It does matter to _you,_ however. For that alone, I’ll look into it. But if you truly want to find Buffalo Bill, Clarice, you’ll have to look within _yourself.”_

With that, he stands up to a nod a goodbye for her. _“Yourself,_ Clarice. Remember that. Goodbye.”

Clarice nods a goodbye in return, before actually clearing her throat and saying, “Thank you, Doctor. Goodbye.”

Hannibal smiles at her, and sits back down. He licks his left index finger, and turns a page in the file. He looks up again, and winks at her, just once.

Clarice fights back a smile that feels natural, easy. She pushes it back down because she knows who he is, what he is.

_Doesn’t she?_

She turns away and walks back down the long, twisting hallway. Two lefts, one right, and straight until she finally ends back up at the security checkpoint and her nails have bits of yellow yarn stuck under them. Chilton isn't there, he’s probably still in his office. She retrieves her things from the guard post and keeps walking until she makes it outside and down the stairs. The sunshine hits her face and she lets her eyes close and take a deep breath.

She’s out.

She’s okay.

_For now at least._

It’s five minutes of peace and solace and ignoring the fact that the only person to treat her like a person in there was a fucking _cannibal_ when her phone rings.

Damn it, she was going to grab a cigarette.

Clarice sighs down at the caller ID, and picks up the phone. “Yes sir?”

“Starling, they just got another body out of the river. It’s Bill's work.”

She swallowed once, and then nodded to herself as her free hand reached into her pocket for the yarn. And just like that, it was a little easier to breathe.”

“Yes, sir. Where do you want me to go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm, seems like we're missing a key player, aren't we? Wonder where he is...
> 
> And what happens in a heroic journey, anyway?
> 
>  
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Putting the pieces together as we make new allies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarice is unabashedly Southern and I love her for that.

Crawford had taken the sheriff and the undertaker into the side room to discuss the finding of the latest body, and Clarice was left alone in the sea of officers. The sheriff had apparently not wanted her with them to discuss the findings. But there were too many officers around here, and they were interfering. She had to fix it, she had to secure her place here. She cleared her throat loudly.

“Alright listen up, please,” Clarice said, voice raised and stretching her neck out to stand out in the crowd of local officers in the West Virginia funeral parlor. “We really do appreciate y’all’s help in this matter, and I know y’all want this to be easier on the family. I understand that.” Her accent got thicker and she got a little more comfortable. “But for right now, would y’all leave us alone to finish up here? We’ll share the information we get with you, you have my word. We clear?”

For a moment, it was all still and her heart was beating in her chest. But then, there was some mumbling and nodding and they started to head out of the funeral parlor. They were listening to her.

“Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate it, I really do. Y’all all have a nice day now,” she said to their backs, finally letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding when they all left the room. She sat in the ancient lilac-colored armchair and waited for Jack to come back.

Hannibal Lecter’s words came back to her as she thought over the case.

_Look within yourself, Clarice._

 

 

Jack turned back in his seat to where Clarice was sitting in the backseat of the car. She was studying the crime scene photos.

“Good job handling that back there,” he says offhandedly. Clarice looks up and nods once.

“Thank you, sir.”

“No hard feelings about the whole ‘leaving the room’ bit, right? It's terrible but-”

“I under _stand,_ sir, but these people look to _you_ for how to act,” Clarice admonishes lightly. She doesn’t outright critique, but her distaste is present in her words.

“Understood, Starling. What do you have on the profile?”

She sighed, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. “Alright, he’s a white male, serial killers tend to stick to their own ethnic groups. Probably late thirties, early forties. He’s got his own place somewhere, a crime like this takes time and privacy, he’s in a permanent location. And he’s methodical, precise, and he won’t stop until someone stops him.”

Jack nods. “What about the skin being taken?”

“I - I’m still working on it.”

A sigh from the front seat, and Clarice curses herself and hits her head on the backseat in frustration. “I’m doing my-” _-best, I promise_, she finishes in her mind

“I know, Starling, that’s why you’re going down to Zeller and Price tomorrow to look over the autopsy reports.”

“Sir, I have class and time on the range tomorrow, I can’t just-”

“Are you done by five-thirty tomorrow?”

“...Yes.”

“Then they'll be expecting you by then tomorrow.”

Clarice held back a groan that threatened to escape her lips. “Yes sir.”

 

 

When Clarice made it to the labs the next day, she wasn't exactly sure where to go. She ended up in a room with a woman in a lab coat and curly brown hair, who was intently studying a glass slide under a microscope. Clarice cleared her throat.

“Um, excuse me? I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go.”

The woman turned around and grinned outright, obviously glad to see her.

“Hi!” the woman said, jumping up from her microscope and pulling off her rubber gloves to walk over and shake Clarice’s hand with slightly sweaty palms. “Dr. Nova Pilcher, pleasure to meet you!”

Clarice found it easy to smile back. “Hi. Clarice Starling, nice to meet you.”

“Oh, you’re Jack Crawford’s trainee that's coming in, right? Zeller and Price mentioned you the other day,” Nova said, cracking her knuckles that were sore from writing her reports. “They, uh, they just brought me on a couple months ago. Always wanted to be an M.E., so I’m interning here. All goes well and I might just end up sticking around.”

“You got a plan, that’s good,” Clarice said, leaning on the doorframe. “Me too, I’m trying to be an agent. Crawford offered me a spot on the case, and I figure it’ll get me somewhere farther than just dumped out with the rest of the class.”

“Amen, sister. Grab the bull right by the horns,” Nova grinned, raising up her pink water bottle and taking a long sip, then offering it to her. “Want some? It’s got Crystal Light.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” Clarice said, shaking her head. Nova nodded, setting the bottle back down and stepping a little closer, dropping his voice.

“Hey, can I ask you a question? If it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to answer, but-”

“Is Hannibal Lecter as terrifying as the stories?” Clarice finishes, smiling despite herself.

“...yeah, you got me, damn, you doing well in those classes, aren’t you?”

“Guess so,” Clarice sighed, letting her head fall back and hit the doorframe. “And well... honestly, Lecter was the best person I met in that damn hospital. Why the cannibal didn’t look at me like a hunk of meat I’ll never know.”

Nova burst out into some laughter, quickly covering her mouth with her hand and kept giggling. Clarice returned the giggle, and felt the tension in her chest dissipate just a little bit.

Nova gathered herself back together and said, still grinning, “Well, wanna go back there and see if they got anything new on Bill?”

“Why not?” Clarice said, grinning back and following her to where the autopsy was being done. Zeller was taking off his gloves while Price was hunched over a microscope. They looked up long enough to nod and smile at her before going back to their tasks. Nova handed Clarice the photos she’d taken of the body.

“Anything new?” she asked over ot Zeller. He shrugged, shaking his head.

“Nope,” he responded, dropping the gloves in the trash. “Same as the others. Starved, skin removed, but in different places. This time it’s two triangles on the back. This one was shot, like the last one, nice and clean. But the two before that were hanged.”

Clarice tuned out the medical jargon and flipped through the pictures, stopping at the one taken of the inside of the girl’s mouth. Something catches her attention.

“I think there’s something in her throat,” she declares, and Nova instantly turns to her, looking almost excited.

“What?”

“The light from the camera flash, it’s not reflecting the bottom of the throat. There’s a blockage, but it was too small to detect at first.”

Price got up from the microscope and pulled on a new pair of gloves, grabbing a pair of long medical tweezers. “Well, let’s have a look, then.”

He pulled the sheet back from the corpse, and Clarice took a subtle deep breath at the sight. Price stuck the tweezers down inside the throat, feeling around, until an ‘a-ha!’ was exclaimed and a small, dark brown object was removed. “There we are. Looks like a...seed pod or something? It’s too big to just get stuck in the throat from the river.”

“No, it’s a cocoon!” Nova exclaimed, a grin breaking out on her face. “For a butterfly or a moth, probably. Can I see?”

Price smiled as well, letting her take the tweezers over to her own microscope and set it out on a glass slide. She turned to Clarice, still grinning like it was Christmas. “I wanted to be an entomologist as a kid, did a few summer jobs with the Natural History museum. Maybe we can see what kind of bug it is.”

She then took off her thick black-framed glasses and sets them down before peering into the microscope. She took her little scalpel and made an incision into the cocoon, and said with satisfaction, “Oh yeah, there you are, you little sneak. Want to have a look at our friend Mr. _Acherontia styx,_ Clarice?”

Clarice nods, and Nova moves out the way so she can look. There’s the tiniest pattern that resembles a skull on the moth’s back. She pulls away. “That’s a weird mark.”

“Death’s head moth is the more common name, he’s a weird little thing,” Nova says, arms folded and looking over at Zeller and Price. “Wanna know the weirdest part? They’re native to East Asia. They’d have to have been shipped in to be in the States.”

“Then that means-” Zeller started, but Clarice finished the statement for him.

“-It means Bill put it there,” she said, standing up straight. “It means it’s a lead. We have a _clue.”_

 

 

It wasn’t much of a clue, but it was _a clue, and that’s what mattered, Clarice thought as she slipped on her pink bunny slippers and made her way back out into the sitting area of the apartment she shared with Ardelia. But that wasn’t the clue forefront in her mind._

_Look inside yourself, Clarice._

What the fuck kind of vague-ass hint was that? she thought, mulling it over. It didn’t make sense; he was obviously implying that she should look inside herself to find the way to Buffalo Bill, but how was she supposed to do that?

_Well, let’s think, Clarice. Maybe that’s not all that me meant. He’s all about double meanings. What else did he say to you?_

_"The first step in a hero’s journey is an initial refusal of the call."_

_Hmmm...maybe he did give her another clue._

“Ardelia?” Clarice called out, uncapping her pen with her teeth and setting the cap down on the coffee table. “Need you.”

Ardelia looked up from where she was making cinnamon rolls from scratch, her sleeves pushed to her elbows so her cream-colored blouse wouldn’t get doughy. She had already punched down the risen dough, and coated it in a mix of sugar and cinnamon. And now she was cutting them into strips and arranging them into perfect little spirals to pack into a baking pan. Her grandma’s recipe, time-consuming but more satisfying than any brand from a can. She finished her tenth spiral and looked up at Clarice, wiping her hands with a wet cloth to prevent stickiness.

“What do you need, girl? Want to run numbers again? We’ve got a quiz Thursday.”

“Oh, shit,” Clarice groaned, letting her head fall back and smack against the back of their overstuffed navy couch. “I forgot, Crawford might have me doing-”

“You tell him that you can’t get recycled,” Ardelia said firmly, picking up her knife and cutting a long strip of dough. She folded it into a perfect spiral, pinching it shut before setting it on the baking pan. “You _tell him,_ Clarice. You tell him that your career is not his to crumple up and toss aside for his benefit. You hear me?”

“I hear you,” Clarice said, a smile peeking out from her lips. “Now, I need to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Lecter told me that the first step in a hero’s journey is an initial refusal of the call,” Clarice said, chewing on her pen. “And he seemed like he wanted me to continue on my way, like I’m actually on some sort of journey.”

“Okay. Weird, but okay.”

“If he’s making this into a story for his amusement, he wants me to follow the trajectory. It’s like watching a play for him. So what’s the next step in a hero’s journey?”

Ardelia rolls up her last twirl of dough and sets it on the baking pan, wiping her hands yet again as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she thought back to a literacy methods course she took in college.

“Seeking a mentor,” she said finally. “The hero seeks out a mentor to help them on their journey. Someone who has traveled a similar road, done similar tasks, but has retired and hidden away from everyone else. They give advice or training to the hero, and let them on their way.” She paused in order to put the cinnamon rolls into the oven, then turned back to Clarice. “Is Lecter saying he wants to be your mentor?”

Clarice shook her head, laughing bitterly. “No, no, he wouldn’t get any fun out of that. He’s the monster in the maze, and he likes offering his own bits of wisdom and playing his part in the story, but he’s not interested in being a mentor.”

“Crawford, then?”

“Crawford’s no mentor to Hannibal, he’s just the one that pulled me into my quest,” Clarice said dismissively. She sighed, and looked down at her binder that she’d read cover to cover. She absently flipped through the pages, and stopped mid-turn when the eyes of Will Graham stared back at her from a photo taken during his incarceration in the BSHCI. Eyes cold and looking right through whoever was looking back.

Someone who’s traveled a similar road, done similar tasks, hidden away from the public eye until the hero finds them again.

It clicked.

“Clarice?” Ardelia’s voice brought her back to the present, and she blinked back at the picture, and traced her hand over the picture.

“I know who he wants me to find,” she said softly. Ardelia came over, pouring a glass of orange juice and offering it. She shook her head at the picture of Will.

“Oh god, girl, you’re not going to start hunting for ghosts, are you?”

“Well, listen: if the FBI covered up Hannibal Lecter’s recapture before it was leaked to the press, they probably covered up Will Graham’s as well,” Clarice said, already reaching for her phone. “And the only person that ever understood Hannibal Lecter was Will Graham.”

“But why wouldn't Crawford send you to see him? If he needs Lecter to talk then you’d think he’d want you to know how to get to him.”

Clarice looked back at the picture, the jumpsuit, the eyes cold and hard and knowing.

“Because he got too close,” she murmured. “Crawford doesn’t want me to get too close.”

There was a scoff that was nothing short of unimpressed. “They shouldn't have fucking pulled you out of class, then, if that’s what they wanted,” Ardelia bit out, practical as ever. “That’s on them, they threw you into the lion’s den to absolve themselves of their failures. What are you going to do?”

Clarice didn’t answer, she was already dialling a number, and she tried to smile when the other line picked up. “Hey, Nova, it’s Clarice.”

“How’s my favorite trainee?” the smiling voice rang in clear on her end. “What can I do for you, hon?”

“It’s - it’s important, and confidential, and I understand if you can’t tell me, but I have to know.”

“Shoot.”

A long pause before she decided to just rip the Band-Aid right off. “Is Will Graham alive?”

An even longer pause, before a simple: “Yes. Why do you want to know?”

“I’m not talking speculation, is he - ”

“I witnessed his examination when he was taken in, Clarice. He’s very alive. He had a bruise that I could've swore was a hickey on his collarbone. Crawford wants you to talk to him?”

“No. But I have to find him.”

“I’m going to be really frank, Clarice: Will Graham is bad news. Lecter, he’s scary because you know the stories, you’ve read the cases, you have a vague idea of who he is. Will Graham - whatever you think he is, he’s not that.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is nothing scarier in this world, Clarice, than someone who has realized their full potential. And that’s what he is. I saw it in his eyes. I’m saying, be careful.”

Clarice smiled in spite of herself. “I will.”

“I don’t know where Graham is, exactly,” Nova admitted. “I know they didn’t shove him into another institution. Tax dollars wasted, I guess. I’ll see if Price still has his case file, if not they’re probably in arch-”

“No! No,” Clarice started, suddenly. “No, if you tell me where he is the FBI will pull the plug on your career, and you’ll get punished. I’ll find him myself. Thank you.”

“Godspeed, Agent Starling,” Nova joked, still optimistic despite the situation. “I’m with you, if you need anything.”

The conversation ended, and both parties hung up. Clarice looked back at the picture one more time.

“So where do you think he is?” Ardelia called over, pulling the cinnamon rolls out of the oven and loosening the crispy bottoms so they won’t stick to the pan. Clarice kept her eyes trained downwards.

“Somewhere close, but far enough away to forget about,” she said finally. “Put a mad dog in an unfamiliar environment, he’ll tear his way out through everyone and everything. And maybe one day he will, regardless of where he is. But for now, he’s somewhere familiar. Somewhere isolated.”

“Is it a smart idea to keep someone like that isolated?” Ardelia asked, filling a bag with white icing.

“They don’t know what else to do with him, Ardelia. He’s not crazy; he’s much too sane for that. The best thing they can think of to do is just keep him hidden away, deep in the subconscious, where they can just forget about him. Where they think he belongs.”

“And just where would that be?”

Clarice doesn’t answer for awhile, not until later that night when she’s still trying to study for a test the next day, and her bluegrass station plays familiar songs with the volume turned down to not wake up Ardelia.

_Hey girl_

_Hey girl_

_Don’t lie to me_

_Tell me where did you sleep_

_Last night?_

_In the pines_

_In the pines_

_Where the sun_

_Don’t never shine_

_I would shiver the whole night long_

 

Clarice takes the pen out of her mouth at her realization.

“That’s where you’re fucking hiding,” she murmurs. “Back at home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who we finally get to see again next time?!?! STAY TUNED, FRIENDS AND READERS.
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don't you ever tame your demons/but always keep 'em on a leash."
> 
> -"Arsonist's Lullaby," Hozier

_Hannibal Lecter is death incarnate._

_Everyone gets to dance with death._

_Will Graham, though, is the one that got the slow dance at the end of the night._

 

Clarice tucks these thoughts away and opens her Chevy door and got out of the driver’s seat, taking a deep breath of the pine-scented air. It was silent, except for the wind and the chirping of birds. It just felt even more eerie, with the dark overcast of late afternoon casting a dark light over everything around her.

Will Graham’s house and the land around it were absolutely _silent._ Yes, she’d already thought that, but it was true. Silence. It felt almost haunted. Nothing around for miles, and it gave off a sense of solitude, of nothing but the dry grass crunching under her feet. There wasn’t a car or anything nearby, either.

_Maybe there wasn’t anybody home._

She went up the three stairs to the porch, and noted that the screen door was closed but the main door was open, and none of the lights were on in the house. So she rang the doorbell, and heard the sounds of dogs barking and skidding on the floor before two of them started pawing at the screen. A sharp, harsh whistle caused them to heel, and start whining at her. Then a voice called out from the darkness inside the house:

“Who’s there? What do you want?”

Clarice clears her throat, thinking for a second that her heart jumped up in there. “My name is Clarice Starling, sir. I’m with the FBI. I - I need speak with you.”

“Why?”

“I need your help,” she admits, deciding to show just a little vulnerability. She can hear the radio now, the faint music dancing on the air.

_There is a house in New Orleans_

_They call the Rising Sun_

_It’s been the ruin_

_Of many a poor boy_

_And God_

_I know_

_I’m one_

“Door’s unlocked,” Will’s voice carries through the screen, and Clarice pushes it open, the dogs eagerly sniffing her, trusting her but making sure she poses no threat to their master as they push past her and run outside.

She carefully steps inside. The overcast sky and no lights on in the house cast shades of muted grey over everything, so much that she doesn’t even see Will Graham at first, and his voice startles her from the chair over in the corner.

“Have a seat,” he says, voice calm and smooth like the clear, plastic cup of bourbon in his hand, glinting in the faint light from outside as he shuts the radio off with his free hand. But she still can’t see his face covered in shadow. She nods anyway, and takes the nearest seat on the couch by the chair, and turns to face him, sitting down.

“Thank you,” she says. He barely nods once, and then reaches over to the lamp, and pulls the cord, flooding their corner with light. They then stare at each other, at this new being in their environment.

Will Graham, all unshaven and tired body language, stares through her the same way Hannibal had done from his cell, but Will’s stare is unfiltered and _piercing._ It isn’t as polished as Hannibal’s, with delicate words and pleasantries to put you at ease.

 _Will Graham_ looks right through to her core, tilting his head, interested that she doesn't falter in her own gaze back.

“Are you an agent?” he asks, the sides of his mouth quirking up. “You don't have a badge, and you’re not upfront about your intentions.”

“I’m still in training, sir,” Clarice responds, crossing her legs. He cocks his head to the other side, as though he's reading _everything_ off of her.

“The FBI sent a trainee to see me?” he asks, nearly amused. “Guess I’m not their dirty little secret anymore.”

“I found you on my own, sir, on a hunch.”

“Damn good hunch,” he shrugs, taking a long sip of his drink. He taps the bottle with his free hand. “Care for one?”

“No. Thank you, though. But I thought drugs and alcohol were prohibited during house arrests.”

Will snorts into his cup, setting it down on the table beside him. “As long as I don’t go outside my invisible fence, the FBI doesn’t really care _what_ I do. Except I’m not even allowed to have _glass,_ can you believe it? Plastic cups and bottles, everything. I think they’re afraid I’m going to hurt myself.”

 _Or someone else,_ goes unsaid.

It’s then Clarice notices the faint blinking light coming from the ground, and she realizes it’s an ankle monitor, hooked up to a charger.

“Four hours a day, you have to charge it,” Will says, looking down at it, straining his leg against it, testing the limit of the monitor. It doesn't budge. “I don’t even think it takes that long to charge, but it sends an alert if I don’t. I figure they feel better knowing I’m stuck in one place.”

 _Like chaining up a mad dog so that he won’t lash out,_ Clarice thinks. Her mind briefly drifts to the image of Hannibal Lecter in a face mask, a glorified muzzle.

_Mad dogs are not meant to be pent up._

“Did Jack send you?” Will asks suddenly, his eyes darting over her, scanning for any clue as to the reason she’s here. “He should come himself if he wants something out of me.”

“No sir. I told you, I found you on my own.”

“Yes, you need help,” Will says, echoing her words. “And you went all the way out here to find me? What do I have that could help you?”

Clarice kept her stare strong. “I need you to tell me about Hannibal Lecter.”

A smile spreads across Will’s face, accentuating the long scar down his cheek, and he even laughs a little as he picks his glass back up again. “Everyone wants to know about Hannibal Lecter, Agent Starling. That’s a _lowball_ of a question.”

“I need to know how to talk to him,” she insists, crossing one leg over the other. “Before I have to see him again.”

Will quirks an eyebrow as finishes the cup, then turns it over and over in his hands as he mulls over her statement. “You’ve been to see him?”

“Jack Crawford sent me to see him, sir.”

Will laughs again, something thin and cruel. “Yeah, I knew it. He’s still the same man. Tell me, is he _borrowing your imagination?”_

“He did not use those words, no.”

“He _implied_ them. So how are you holding up?”

“Well so far, thank you,” she said. “Now, about-”

“So who does Jack have you tracking?” Will interrupted, taking the cap off the plastic bottle of bourbon. “Must be pretty desperate if he’s willing to take a trainee out of classes.”

“Buffalo Bill.”

Will nodded, his teeth slightly worrying his bottom lip. “I heard about him. Pretty desperate, I was right. They don’t have a clue where or who he is, do they?”

“The evidence keeps getting washed away in the river, they can’t keep ahold of nothing,” Clarice said, then corrected herself. _“Anything,_ sorry. Can’t keep ahold of _anything.”_

Will smiled again, even laughing a little. “Just like your accent, huh? You can’t shake it off, can you?” Now Clarice can hear a trace of a Southern drawl slipping into Will’s own voice, some long-repressed roots breaking free to the surface. “Tennessee, maybe?”

“West Virginia.”

“Oh, yeah? What made you leave, besides the obvious?”

This time a laugh escaped Clarice’s lips. “Yeah, there wasn’t much out there for me. I had to get away.”

“I moved around a lot, spent a good chunk of my time in New Orleans, though,” Will offers. “I get where you’re coming from. Shoo fly pie and Mardi Gras, that’s what I remember.”

Clarice leaned back, relaxing her posture before straightening back up. The smile comes easily for her. “I’m partial to pecan pie, myself. And we didn’t get Mardi Gras in my small town, we had a pancake supper at the Baptist church the night before Ash Wednesday.”

Will laughs as he fills his cup up with bourbon. “And I’ll bet old Miss Sandra was pissed as hell they didn’t have any sugar-free syrup for her _condition.”_

“Her name was Miss Jean, actually,” Clarice corrected lightly, and they shared another laugh together and Clarice realized suddenly that this was too easy and she just _forgot_ he’s currently chained down for association with _Hannibal Lecter_ who’s stuck in his own cage. Her smile fades and Will notices right away. He straightens his neck, and sighs when he stretches out a sore muscle.

He looks over at her, and says bluntly, “I’m not going to pity you, Agent Starling. You know why?”

“No, sir.”

“Because you don’t want pity. Pity gets you a pat on the head and an _‘it’ll be okay, darlin’, just keep your chin up._ ’ You don’t want that. You know what you want?”

“What?”

“Understanding,” Will declares, about to cross one leg over the other out of sheer habit but stops when the monitor that is currently charging does not allow him to do so. For a brief second, Clarice catches a flicker of a snarl on his lips and teeth before it goes down just as suddenly. “You want someone to understand the position that you’re in because you feel _lost_ in that darkness that’s threatening to creep up inside of you.”

Clarice blinks, her breath momentarily stolen away by the sudden, quick analysis. “Y - yes.”

“You’re alone in that darkness that no one else understands, aren’t you?”

“Y - yes.”

"You're never alone in the darkness, you just can't see what or who else is in there with you. It's not necessarily a bad thing, you know?"

"I - I don't follow, sir."

“You’re having nightmares.”

She has to stop her voice from creaking as he keeps peeling back all of her layers, one by one. _“Yes.”_

“What are they about?”

_She’s staring up at the white ceiling of the morgue where they pulled that girl out of the river, and her vision is hazy and not clear until there’s the sound of a zipper unzipping and the overwhelming smell of plastic leaves her nose as she realizes she’s the one in the body bag._

_“Too close,” sounds a voice, but no body attached to it._

_Her heart’s beating so fast she can feel pressing against her ribcage and trying to escape through the spaces between the bones, pushing up against them with each breath. It’s so loud, it hurts her ears._

_And then the last part of her dream is always a hand that is not hers reaching into her open chest and wrapping around her heart, grabbing it, squeezing it, pulling it up and out and she screams, it sounds like bleating, like that poor little -_

_\- she screams and then wakes up tangled in the sheets with tears streaming down her face._

Clarice blinks, and swallows to try to gather herself. She hasn’t said a word, Will notes as he drains the plastic cup.

“You are, aren't you?”

She nods, not trusting herself to speak without it coming out a croak. Will nods. “I had a lot of nightmares on my first case, too. But it’s like learning to break a board with your hand, you know? Lots of tiny fractures in the bones that harden and calcify over time, make it stronger. Hurts like _hell,_ though, no getting around that.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Clarice said dryly, straightening her posture and letting out a sigh. SHe shrugged and laughed a little with nothing behind it. It didn’t lead to another point. So Will spoke up.

“You’re angry.”

She looked up, surprised at this assessment. He shrugged back, smiling. “Your fists are clenched, you’re mad and it’s just under the surface. I bet you just want to do _this-”_  he suddenly completely crushed the empty plastic cup in his hand, his knuckles turning white “-to every _one_ and every _thing_  standing in your way. Don’t you?”

Clarice didn't answer, but she subtly shifted to her right, away from Will. He dropped the crushed cup onto the ground and he dug his fingers into the armrest for something to grip onto. “I can _see_ that, Agent Starling. You’re in a better headspace than I was on my first case with the FBI, but you're afraid of slipping. You're afraid to turn out like Miriam, or like me.”

“And what about now?” Clarice asks, cutting to the quick. "What headspace are you in now?"

A slower, much darker smile spreads across his face, and she’s reminded of Hannibal Lecter for a brief moment before it fades away. He smiles enough that she can see his teeth bare for a second.

“I have never had more clarity in my entire life,” he declares, letting his head fall back and close his eyes. The smile doesn’t go away. “However my file does claim that I am currently suffering from an extreme case Stockholm Syndrome and a whole _cocktail_ of other issues. But they don’t have anything that sticks, that’s why I’m here. Jack didn’t want you to go poking around, did he?”

Clarice just shrugs again. She’s not getting anywhere, so she gets ready to stand up and potentially leave when he shifts in his chair, sitting up completely and leaning towards her, head cocked and looking interested.

“Let me tell you about Hannibal Lecter, Clarice: he likes to see what happens when people get pushed to their limits. You’re pushing yours right now, he wants to see if you’ll snap or become better for it. That’s what he wants out of this. Next, he’s one of the most honest people I’ve ever known, he just like being vague. If he’s using metaphors around you, they’re not as deep as you think they are, all the time. Sometimes he’s very literal if you’re paying attention. And above all: don’t lie to him. Just - just don’t.”

The smile falls off of his face as he shifts in his seat again, looking off at the side, at the floor, biting at his lower lip before turning back to her.

“There’s your help,” he added, clasping his hands together, letting his head fall back, closing his eyes. He stretches his leg out, only for the charging cord to stop it from stretching all the way. “Take it with a grain of salt if you want it.”

Clarice waits a moment, picking at a loose strand on her red flannel shirt, before standing up and holding her bag close to her side. “Thank you, Mr. Graham.”

 _“Will.”_ Will corrects, eyes still closed. “I’m not a _‘Mr. Graham’_ or a ‘sir.’ I’m not FBI or professional anymore. You don’t have to address me like that, Agent Starling.”

Clarice swallows and nods once. “Then you don’t have to call me ‘Agent’, I’m not real FBI.”

“Yes, you are,” Will insists. “They just haven't given you your badge yet. You’re as much FBI as the agents that come in once a week to see if I’ve ran off or tried to stab myself. You’ve got potential to be better than that. You understand me?”

“Yes s- _Will,”_ she agrees, fixing her error.

“Good,” Will concedes. “You can let yourself out.”

“Should I let the dogs back in?”

“They’re not _my_ dogs, they’re strays,” Will says. “They come and go as they like, I can’t and won’t keep them stuck here with me. Goodbye, Agent Starling.”

“...Goodbye,” Clarice said back, turning around and walking out through the screen door, closing it herself instead of letting it _slam_ closed.

Will waited until he heard the gravel crunching under the tires of her car as she drives away, and then reopened his eyes. He fumbled for the pack of paper clips on the coffee table and pulled one out. He bent and twisted it in his hands until he made the shape of a fish hook.

He turned it over and over in his hands and let another slow, dark smile spread across his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONFESSION TIME: When I started writing this story I had these four chapters pretty much all written out. Now that they are completely, updates will be a little slower now. I should have one for next week, though, so stay tuned to what's going on! I hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarice finally gets a puzzle piece to fit where it belongs, and enters into a deal withe devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, updates might be a little while after this, but I hope you all enjoy!

Yourself.

Yourself.

_Yourself, Clarice._

Look inside  _yourself._

It was starting to gnaw at her, an itch she couldn't reach. What the hell does it _mean?_

Clarice had stopped at a coffee shop after visiting Will Graham, needing some time to think and browse the pastry section.

_Yourself._

Hannibal is honest, but likes to be vague, and _funny,_ according to Will. So maybe yourself isn’t what she thinks it means.

Jack had forwarded an email from Chilton that contained a message that Hannibal had wanted passed along:

_Time flies, Clarice. Especially when you’re tuned into yourself._

 

_Look inside yourself._

Okay. Maybe she’s putting the emphasis on the wrong word, she thinks to herself as she sips her black coffee with one sugar packet in her car seat, key dangling from the ignition.

 _Inside_ yourself.

 _Okay, think, Clarice._ Inside. Maybe he’s talking about a place. And it would have to be in or around Baltimore, that was his main operational hub.

Where do you keep things inside?

 

_Inside. Yourself._

 

...wait a fucking minute, it was starting to hit her.

 

She grabbed her phone and did a quick internet search, smacking herself in the forehead when she was greeted with the results.

“You mother _fucker,”_ Clarice muttered out loud, pulling up map instructions. _“Yourself,_ my fucking _ass.”_

 

 

“YourSelf Storage Facility, how can I help you, ma’am?” the man behind the counter says, barely looking up from his trashy crime thriller. Clarice cleared her throat and straightened her posture.

“Yes sir, I’m the FBI personnel that called about needing to see inside a certain unit. I have a badge and the authority.”

_Technically._

“You got a name?”

“Actually I was hoping that I could see a list-”

“I ain’t lettin’ you scan through my clients’ names, you gotta have someone _specific_ in mind,” he snapped at her.

Clarice bit back an annoyed sigh, fingers tapping on the counter as her mind raced. Time was running out, she didn’t have time to chase riddles and puns and -

Time flies, Clarice.

Fuck.

“F-Fugit,” she said suddenly. “Is - is there someone with the last name Fugit who owns a container.”

The man behind the counter typed on the laptop, and clicked his tongue. “Fugit, Fugit, Fug-  Temple Fugit? That who you’re looking for?”

Clarice let out a mix of a sigh of relief and a laugh. “Y-yeah, that’s it. That’s what I’ve been looking for.”

“Well, his door’s all jammed up due to disuse. If you come ‘round in the morning I can have -”

“Would you just give me half an hour with the car jack I got in my trunk?” she offers with a smile. “Half an hour, and uh, here’s the number for my supervisor in case I get stuck or something. Thank you!”

The man sighed, then nodded as he wrote down the container number and passed it over to her. “Half hour, sweetheart.”

She ignored the condescending nickname, she barely heard it over the rush of excitement in her ears. She ran out to her car, grabbed her carjack, and started searching for the container while it started to drizzle. It wasn’t long before she found it, the man from before unlocking it for her. He tried to pull at it, but it barely gave way, and he shrugged.

“All yours,” he offered with a wave of his hand, and she nodded in return, already setting up the carjack and cranking it up as high as she could get it. She only got it about two feet high, and she blew air out of her mouth in frustration. She undid her gun belt, and slid it through the gap before her. Then she pushed her hair out of her eyes and got down on the ground, holding out her phone to use the flashlight feature. She slid it into her shirt pocket and started to wiggle underneath the opening, trying to avoid getting stuck. Her jeans got snagged on the underside of the opening and scratched the skin on her thigh, causing her to hiss as she finally pulled free and she was inside the container. Swallowing hard, she took out her phone and shone the light around her.

It was cold, dark, and musty, and the only sounds were the patterning of the raindrops on the roof of the storage container. The stuff inside hadn’t been touched in years, and there was a thick coating of dust over everything. Maybe this would be easier if she actually knew what she should be looking for.

 _Well, gotta start somewhere,_ she thought, making her way over to the car in the middle of the container. It was an old car, but still looked like it was in good condition for not running in years. The dust was thick enough to drag her finger through it and draw. She didn’t, though. She just wiped it off enough to look inside the car. Something in the backseat was covered with a thick navy blue blanket. She needed to get to it, but the car was locked.

Window! The passenger side window was down a crack. And she reached inside and felt around on the seat.

Jackpot.

Her fingers wrapped around the keys, and she hit the twice button to unlock the car before she dropped the keys back into the seat and pulled away. She brushed the hair out of her eyes and pulled open the car handle, coughing as she stirred up a whole new layer of dust. She held the phone in her teeth as she slipped on a glove she had in her pocket, then took the phone off into her free hand. Bracing herself, she took a deep breath, and peeled the blanket away, letting it fall to the floor of the car.

It was a jar.

There was a preserved human head in that jar.

Clarice’s heart jumped straight into her throat, and she choked on it, breathing hard. It turned into a bit of a hysterical laugh as she noticed something else inside the mouth of the head.

A death’s head moth.

Her fingers were already calling Jack’s number, and she couldn’t keep the giddy adrenaline out her voice. “J- Agent Crawford, I - I have something. I got another puzzle piece to fit.”

 

 

It was another three hours before Clarice could leave the area, she had to fill in the local police and the field agents about her findings, and then she was shooed away while they finished the examination. She offered to stay and help. The head field guy took one look at her soaked hair and clothes and a bloody cut on her thigh and told her to go and get some rest.

She couldn't just do that. She had to - to tell him.

Which is why she found herself scurrying up the stairs to the BSHCI and heading right over to the receptionist’s desk. It was Jonathan from before, good, this would be a little easier. She cleared her throat, and tried to straighten her drenched hair before standing in front of him.

“Hello, it’s, um, me again, Agent Starling? Could I-”

“Visiting hours are over.”

“No, listen to me, I’m here on official FBI business, and I have to speak with Dr. Lecter,” she lied. Okay, it wasn’t a total lie but it wasn’t the total truth either. Jonathan finally looked up from his solitare game to meet her eyes, a smile forming on his face as he stood up and nodded.

“Listen, Agent Starling, I’m going to let you talk to him because you obviously need to for your murder case thing,” he said as they made their way through the maze of cells. Unlike the last time, everyone was quiet when they looked back at her. A few even turned away when they saw her coming. “You’re just lucky Dr. Chilton left early to meet with his publisher, he is pissed as hell with you.”

“What did I do?” Clarice said offhandedly, looking over to where Miggs’ cell was. She was surprised to see it empty. “Where’s Miggs?”

“Oh, Chilton didn’t tell Crawford? Or did they just not tell you?”

“What?”

“Miggs is, pardon my French, fucking _dead,_ Agent Starling.”

Her heart dropped. Her brain did not compute this information. “W-What do you mean, _dead?_ He was fine two days-”

“Bit right through his tongue and choked on it. Killed himself.”

“W-Why?”

The look she got back was too knowing for her taste as they stopped at the guard station. She just let them keep her bag this time as she stepped through the doorway. Jonathan’s words followed her “Because Lecter sent him a letter that scolded him for his behavior towards _you,_ told him his dead mother would be very upset with him, and kindly suggested that he bite his tongue. Next morning we found him dead.”

The door slid shut, trapping her in her thoughts. She was too stunned to start walking, and only breathed again when she felt that little ball of yellow yarn inside her pocket. And as she made her way down to Lecter’s cell, she wiped some water off of her face and caught a whiff of violet hand cream. It made her relax a bit more.

When she got to Lecter’s cell, it was darker than before. It was only seven o’clock, she figured that this was Chilton’s punishment. The sound of a violin solo played from inside the cell, his one luxury, she supposed.

 _“Tempus fugit,_ doctor,” she said, attempting to joke. She couldn’t see him, so she couldn’t see his response. “The YourSelf storage facility? Whose head is in that jar, doctor? Why is there a moth with the head? You - you know who Bill is, don’t you?”

The sudden sound of the slot sliding open startled her. She hadn’t paid attention to the figure in the darkness sending something out to her, but she caught his form retreating back into the dark. She tentatively walked over to the slot, and lifted out a clean, bleach white, hospital-issue towel.

Suddenly, she was aware of how she was soaked to the bone, her hair dripping onto the floor around her. She nodded in the direction of the cell. “Thank you,” she murmured, as she set about drying her hair. “W-Why-”

“You have so many questions, Clarice, and you just solved the one,” Hannibal Lecter’s smooth voice rang out through the air holes in the glass. “You should take a rest, you don’t want to be overwhelmed. I read a rather interesting thesis last Thursday that stated that we all have an internal clock slowly moving towards ten. You may be at an eight or nine, but when you reach ten, you will know, and it often feels like nothing less than chipping a teacup. Are you chipping away at yourself? That’s not healthy.”

“It’s a little late for that, doctor,” she said back, squeezing her hair out and wrapping and unwrapping it in the towel. “I’m already waist-deep in the water, just trying to keep my footing.”

“Yes, you are. But you think one slip will drag you under? I doubt that, Clarice. You are the rock where all other ground is sinking sand.”

“I didn’t know you were familiar with old Baptist hymns, Dr. Lecter.”

“But _you_ are, Clarice. From your childhood, I would assume.”

“Correct.”

“Please, pull up a chair. Have a seat.”

Clarice nodded, taking the folding chair from the corner and setting it up a tad bit closer to the glass than she thought was wise. Hannibal moved the desk chair closer, as well, and she could finally see him. He was amused. That was a toss of a coin if that was a good thing or not.

“I’ll make you an offer, Clarice,” Hannibal says, folding one leg over the other as though they are two colleagues having a conference meeting, or a doctor and a patient discussing the issues at hand.

She supposes, in a way, that’s what they are anyway.

Hannibal smiles before continuing speaking. _“Quid pro quo,_ Clarice. Tell me things I want to know, and I’ll tell you about Buffalo Bill. Do we have a deal?”

Clarice mulled it over in her mind, rolling her tongue against the side of her cheek. This was not a good idea, in probably every conceivable theory. It was obvious and stupid to even consider this option.

“Why should I accept this offer, Doctor?” Clarice said, holding her own against him. “Give me a reason to believe you.”

Hannibal’s smile grew a little wider, and he turned his hands out in a show of goodwill. “Have I given you a reason to not trust me, Clarice?”

“You’re locked in the BSCI for, among other acts, murder, Dr. Lecter. It’s a little difficult to trust you when you’re on the opposite side of the glass.”

“Clarice, I have not lied to you. That’s what we are discussing right now, honesty.”

“You - you convinced Miggs to kill himself,” Clarice murmured, barely above a whisper.

“He was unforgivably rude to you. I wasn’t about to stand for that, Clarice, you’re dealing with enough that Miggs was nothing more than a fly to swat down for me. Do you feel better now that he’s gone?”

“Not - not really, you _killed_ him.”

“He killed himself, I merely brought him to that edge. He threw himself off, Clarice. Now, _quid pro quo._ Yes or no?”

She bit her lip, and nodded before she could talk herself out of it. This was the only way to find Bill. She could do this. _She could do this._ “I accept.”

“Excellent,” Hannibal smiled again, tilting his head to the side to look at her from another angle. “You may go first.”

She thought for a moment. “Okay - do you know Buffalo Bill personally, Dr. Lecter?”

“We were never formally acquainted, no,” was his clear response. “But his former lover, Raspail, I believe, was a patient of mine for a time. Terrible flutist. I served his kidneys in a sherry cream sauce to the rest of the orchestra board. They were decent, at least.”

“What about-”

“Ah ah, Clarice,” he scolded lightly. “Now it’s my turn. Tell me: why did the death of your father hurt so much?”

 _Straight to the hard questions._ “He was all I had. My mother died when I was young, I never knew her. He raised me, and when he died I lived with my uncle at his ranch for a few months before he sent me to stay at the orphanage. I lived there until I left for college.”

“Interesting,” Hannibal conceded. “Why did you leave?”

“It’s my turn, Doctor,” Clarice reminded, crossing her legs and letting the towel drape over her shoulders.

“Forgive me, do continue,” Hannibal said, nodding to her. She stared back, hard. She didn’t ask a question about Bill. Not yet.

“Tell me, Doctor: did you ever reach ten on your internal scale? I would imagine you never get above five.”

 _Something_ crosses Hannibal’s expression. Something human, like watching a statue crack. Then it’s gone before she can process it and he looks back at her, a little off-guard, unrecognizable if she wasn’t so close right now.

“Once,” he replies simply. “Only once.”

“What did it feel like?”

His smile isn’t the coy, near smirk like before. It’s evident to her that it’s a mask. For one second, she got to see under it.

He stares deep into her eyes, as though he’s peeling away to her core. “It was the first crack in a dam leak, Clarice. When it happened, I simply knew it. The smallest thing set it off. However, the results of my reaching ten on my inner scale did not come crashing down until later.”

“Do you regret that, Doctor?”

“You’ll make an excellent agent, Clarice. Very to-the-point. I appreciate that. I do not, to answer your question. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened in another possible world, but it is what it is. What did Solomon say when he was asked for a statement that would be true in peacetimes and war times, Clarice?”

 _“‘This too shall pass,’”_ she said back quietly. Hannibal nodded, and the slightly devious smile came back.

“That was more than one question, Clarice. Now I will ask you more. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Tell me about your stay in the orphanage. What’s the most vivid memory you have from that place?”

Clarice pulls the towel off from her shoulders, bunching it in her fingers. “I - we went to a tent revival one summer. During the service the preacher pulled a snake out of a box and started running around with it in his arms, shouting that God would not let His faithful get bitten. He got close to my face, the snake got closer. I didn’t try to take it, even when he offered it. I didn’t even try, and I got reprimanded when we got back for disrespect.”

“Do you think God saved you from that snake, Clarice?”

“No,” she said plainly. “The snake had its place, and it was agitated. I had my place, and I was agitated. No need for us to exasperate the other even further. We ran parallel, not intersecting.”

Hannibal said nothing for a few moments, then leaned forward a little more. “You are well on your way, Clarice. How is your journey?”

“Going fine, sir. Taking the necessary steps as you recommended. But now it’s my turn for a question.”

“I’m still owed one more, Clarice.”

She held back a sigh and shrugged. “Go ahead, sir.”

His eyes lit up for a moment. “Buffalo Bill, Clarice. Tell me why he does what he does.”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t -”

“Alright, why do you _think_ he does this, Clarice? Why does he kill and skin these girls?”

She bit her lip, shrugging again. “It could be anything, sir. It could be a sense of power-”

“No.”

“...it could be for some sort of sexual gratification, a literal _conquest_ of-”

“No, no, _no,_ Clarice, you were doing so well, don’t stop now. What does he do with these girls?”

“He kills them.”

“No, he _covets,_ Clarice. And how do we begin to covet?”

Clarice shook her head. “I don’t know, sir.”

“We covet what we _see,_ every day,” Hannibal says, almost gentle. “There’s your clue, Clarice. You’ve read the case file?”

“Cover to cover, sir.”

“You should be able to find him with what’s in there. All the information is already at your disposal. All you must do is put all of the pieces together. Do you understand that, Clarice?”

“Yes sir.”

“That’s good. You’re smart, Clarice. I have far more confidence in you than the FBI and the administration put together. Do you know why?”

“No sir.”

“Because you know what you are,” Hannibal declares, offering another smile. “Do you know what separates a labyrinth from a maze?”

“No sir.”

“In a true labyrinth, Clarice, there are no dead ends, no false passageways to confuse you or get you lost. A true labyrinth is designed so that no matter which path you take, you always find your way to the center. That's where you are, Clarice: the center in the labyrinth.”

Clarice blinks, and works her jaw as she takes a deep breath. Hannibal nods, more to himself than to her, and stands up.

“I would enjoy nothing more than to speak with you, Clarice, but it’s nearly eight and you should be heading back to the Academy, no? I can't have the FBI waste talent because you missed a quiz. You may return the towel to me.”

She nods, rising from her chair and walking over to the slot and passed the towel through it, folded shoddily. It had never been one of her strong points. Hannibal's smile could almost pass for endearing as she puts the chair away and stands in the middle of the room.

“Goodnight, Clarice,” he says cordially. “Perhaps we will see each other again soon.”

“Perhaps so, Dr. Lecter,” Clarice returns. “Goodnight.” And she turns on her heels and walks back out into the hallway. Hannibal listens as her footsteps grow fainter until they fade away completely. Then he goes over to the slot and retrieves the towel that Clarice had dropped off. In the faint light from the hallway, he folds it into a simple swan design that the cheap towel structure will allow.

It smells faintly of apple-scented Suave two-in-one shampoo-conditioner, and just a _hint_ of bourbon and dog hair.

Hannibal smiles to himself, setting the towel on the desk and going to lay on his cot, closing his eyes as the violin solo starts up again from his recording.

 

 

 

When Clarice wokes up the next morning, Ardelia doesn’t have time to turn the morning news off. She’s too glued to the screen to even notice Clarice behind her, reading the headlines broadcasted in screaming red font:

**DAUGHTER OF SENATOR RUTH MARTIN ABDUCTED BY BUFFALO BILL**

“When?” Clarice asks softly. Ardelia reaches behind her to place a somewhat comforting hand on her arm.

“Didn’t come home last night. Found her dress on the side of the road by her condo, slit up the back. Just like the others.”

Clarice’s phone started ringing in the other room. Crawford, no doubt. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“If Bill keeps to his pattern, we have four days, about ninety-six hours, before he kills her.”

The phone stops ringing, only for it to immediately start up again. There are three voicemails by the time Clarice can bring herself to answer it.

“Office, _now.”_ And Crawford hangs up.

Clarice resists throwing the phone at the wall and shattering it. Instead, she takes a long deep breath and makes a mental note.

She’s at a _seven_ on her internal counter right about now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (btw tempus fugit = time flies if you're still a little confused)
> 
> Now we've got a time crunch, people, the tension is HIGH. Hope you're all ready for a ride!
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Clarice entered into a deal with the devil, it's now time for the devil to enter into a deal with _her._

_Senator Martin is willing to offer anything in exchange for Catherine's return. You tell Hannibal that. Offer him anything he wants, Jack says, his grip tight on his coffee cup, tight enough that he could snap the handle off._

_What does he want, sir?_

_Figure it out and offer it. We can match it. Just do it. We are running out of time._

 

 

Clarice took another deep breath and knocked on Will Graham’s screen door, and opened her mouth to call out when he stepped in the doorway. It startled her, and she remembered that he wasn’t locked down all of the time. He could still walk around on his own. He tilted his head as he leaned against the doorframe, and looked down at her.

“Agent Starling,” he nodded in greeting. “Don’t know what I could do for you.”

Her answer was plain. “I’m stuck.”

He paused for a second, then nodded again. He opened the screen door and stepped out, pulling a light jacket out with him, slipping it on. “Let’s walk. Fresh air helped when my head wouldn't leave me alone.”

“How do you know-”

“I know,” he says simply, walking past her down the few steps of the porch. He turns back to her. “Are you coming?”

Her hand pats her pocket where her handgun rests on the side of her thigh. She had taken it out of her car and kept it close. Will notices this movement and a faint hint of a smile crosses his face.

“Are you a good shot?” he asks, his gaze resting on where her hand touches the barrel. She nods.

“I get high marks whenever we get put on the range.”

“That’s good. Have you shot someone yet?”

“No sir. Still training.”

“When you do, remember to breathe and don’t empty the whole thing unless you feel like you have to. Don’t panic.”

She nods, and comes down the porch stairs to stand beside him. They start to walk down a path that Will has obviously used many times, with the dry brown grass already pressed against the ground by footsteps. They walk in comparative silence, hands in their respective pockets, until Will, surprisingly, breaks the quiet.

“Why did you come here?”

“Because I need answers,” she says back, kicking a small stone out of her way.

“And do you think I have them?”

“I believe that you know the methods I can use to _obtain_ those answers,” Clarice says, as they stop in a clearing in the pines. Will leans up against a tree and slides down to the ground, sitting and crossing one leg over the other. Clarice takes a seat across from him, far enough that there’s a few feet of space between them. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead.”

She pulls one from her pack, then thinks on it and offers the pack to Will. “Want one?”

He smiles a little, and removes one from the pack. She tucks it back into her pocket and takes out her lighter, lighting his first and then hers. A breeze ruffles through the pine needles and there’s the sounds of birds chirping. Will exhales smoke and taps the ash onto the soil.

“Didn’t think you smoked,” Clarice remarked. Will shrugs.

“I don’t. I did off and on, a long time ago, when I was a cop. Only if someone offered one. Never became a habit. It didn’t take the edge off like it was supposed to.”

“Bourbon and whiskey do, I guess.”

“They just dull the edge,” Will says back, staring at the glowing end of the cigarette and removes an unopened pack of pecan twirls. He offers it to her. “Want one?”

Clarice notes that the package hasn’t been tampered, it’s basic gas station cuisine, and she gratefully accepts. It’s sweet and messy, and they talk for a few brief moments about growing up, single fathers, and the twang that Will manages to shake out of his voice but Clarice can’t lose.

“It’s a part of you, where you’re from,” Will stares, a pecan crumble landing on his leg. He swats it away. “I moved around too much, it didn’t stick with me.”

Clarice decides to change the subject when that one ends.

“There’s a theory I heard about. It states that we all have a counter slowly moving towards ten. And only when we reach ten can we truly find it within ourselves to change.”

“Interesting.”

“So I’m curious; did you ever reach ten?” Clarice asked, letting the ash from her cigarette drop onto her lap. Will’s eyes seem to look to somewhere distant, momentarily revisiting another time and place.

“Only once. I think I hit nine several times, but I only made it to ten once. I was too - afraid, I guess, to actually allow myself to reach ten. To finally let the walls come down. To change. To… _evolve.”_

“And what did it feel like?”

Will pauses, taking a drag on his own cigarette and breathing out the smoke as he speaks one word: _“Beautiful.”_

Clarice unconsciously works her teeth against her cigarette, pulling it away to reveal faint pink prints around it. “I don’t know if I’ve reached ten yet. I feel pretty damn close.”

“Then you're not there yet,” Will states, letting his head fall back against the trunk of the tree. “When you get there, you’ll know. It feels - _easy._ That’s the only way I could describe it. Like everything you’ve been struggling with is… over with. A sense of peace. The stillness after a storm, you understand?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I understand,” Clarice says, mirroring his action and leaning against her tree. Will nods, takes another drag.

“What do you need to know?”

She takes a deep breath, that tastes like smoke and pine sap and the soft earth after a light rain. “I have to make Hannibal an offer. One to convince him to help me find Bill before he kills Catherine Martin.”

“Hannibal doesn’t take offers unless it benefits him as much as his information will benefit you,” Will retorts.

“That’s why I’m here. I’m here to ask you: what does Hannibal want? If he could have anything right now, what would it be?”

Will quirks an eyebrow, his teeth grazing the cigarette. “And you think I know what he wants?”

“Yeah. I do. You’re the one that caught him the first time.”

“I never caught Hannibal. He surrendered to the FBI.”

Clarice gives him a critical look, and he tilts his neck to the side with a smile, letting her examine him.

Her mind flashes back to Hannibal Lecter’s cell, the drawings on the walls. She tries to remember what they were drawings of. There was… a chapel, that was one. Something like a body either tangled in a sheet or a sheet draped over it. A version of the Vitruvian man, with -

\- with curls.

She stares back into Will’s eyes as he waits for her response, and sees that drawing in human form, just like it was intended: surrounded by late sunlight, head held high enough to demonstrate self-worth and pride, and a vague memory of a smile. She stubs out her cigarette in the wet dirt left by the rain and stands up.

“No. No, you caught him. Not they way they think you did,” she says finally, and both of them share a secret smile. Will matches her action and stubs out his cigarette the same way. He doesn't get up. He intends to stay there for a while with his thoughts.

“So tell me, Agent Starling: what does Hannibal covet?"

She laughs at that, not quite amusement. More like a knowing _‘oh, I see what this is.’_

“We first start to covet what we see every day,” she retorts. “And then we covet what we see and remember, but can’t have.”

Neither of them bother with saying a goodbye, Will nods to her and closes his eyes, and she turns and heads back up and out towards her car. Briefly, she considered what would happen if he sprang up behind her, dragged her back down. Nobody knew where she was. It would be awhile before anyone found her. Just because they’re cordial and nearly bordering on _friends_ doesn't mean that she trusts him. He doesn't trust her. Not completely.

But he doesn't come after her, and she makes it to her car, and picks up her clipboard. She adds a new note to the bottom of her assigned list of offers.

What you want more than anything.

 

 

This time, when Clarice walked into the BSHCI, Chilton’s waiting for her when she waits for Jonathan to take her down to Lecter.

“You’ve caused quite the stir, Agent Starling. He was doing fairly well, hardly being a nuisance until you showed up,” he sneers. Clarice just smiles sweetly at him, fake sweet, Splenda-sugar sweet.

“With all due respect, sir-” _(so none)_ “-I just came here to get a job done. What Hannibal Lecter does when I’m not here is not my problem, sir.”

“And why are you here today?”

She holds up her clipboard and keeps the smile plastered on. “I’m here to make Dr. Lecter an offer, on behalf of the FBI and Senator Martin. Some privileges and special favors in return for the safe recapture of Catherine Martin.”

 _“I_ can run these demands just fine, why should you go down there?”

The smile was starting to slip, she had to stop herself from gritting her teeth. “If it’s that important to you, Dr. Chilton, I have a signed paper from Agent Crawford that authorizes my visit today, and we are under an extreme timecrunch.”

Chilton looks over her again, in a way that feels more invasive than when Hannibal does it. “Alright, Miss Starling, you may go. But I’ll give you a hint, since you are _new_ to this.”

“What is it, sir?” _(Oh fuck you, Chilton)_

“Just because Hannibal Lecter appears to, and may even actually like you, that doesn’t make you safe. Not in the least.”

 _Well he fucking hates you, and look what happened to you!_ Clarice thinks before she can stop herself. Luckily it doesn't escape her lips. “Thank you, sir,” she lies through her teeth, silently thanking God Jonathan shows up to take her down to Lecter. She promptly turns around and tries to ignore him looking back at her as he also leaves the room.

_Fucker._

The guards basically waive her right through, at this point they know she’s not stupid to take anything back there that she’s not supposed to. She almost wants to skip down the hallway, she’s thrilled. She’s finally got an edge that she can use.

Hannibal is sitting at his desk when she stands in front of his cell, and he looks up at her with a seemingly smile.

“On Theseus’ journey to defeat the Minotaur, Clarice,” he says, his idea of a greeting today. “He met several different obstacles along the way. One was a man named Procrustes who owned an inn, and he wanted each guest to fit the bed perfectly. This meant that he would chop off limbs or stretches the poor soul out until they were bent out of shape so that they would fit his expectations and desired results. So I ask you, Clarice, is Jack going to cut something off of you or stretch you to your limits?”

“I don’t know, Dr. Lecter,” she answers back. “If your theory on my heroic journey is correct, neither will occur.”

Hannibal smiled wider at her, folding a piece of paper perfectly down the middle. “Always quick-witted, Clarice. I expected you to arrive sometime soon once I heard about poor Catherine. You are under quite a time constraint now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” she sighs, decidedly not unfolding her chair that rests in her corner. She rocks back and forth on her heels and tries to smile at him. “But the FBI and Senator Martin are prepared to fulfill several benefits for you if you cooperate and help Catherine get home safely.”

Hannibal looks over his work at the desk to stare at her, amusement brimming in his expression. “And what am I being offered, Clarice?

She pulls out her clipboard and starts to read. “A differently facility, and a much bigger cell, one with a window and plenty of space for more drawings. And an opportunity to go outside and feel the sun once a week. And -”

“Clarice, I cannot be swayed with petty favors,” Hannibal scolds lightly. “You ought to know that.”

Clarice smiles outright. She still has a card up her sleeve. “But you didn’t let me finish, Doctor. In addition to all of these benefits, with behavior permitting, you will be allowed a three hour visit with Will Graham.”

 _That_ gets Hannibal to change his expression ever so slightly. She continues, pretending not to notice. “It will be from your cell, and you both have to remain at least four feet away from the glass, but neither of you will be in restraints. And perhaps if it goes well, you’ll be allowed another in the future. Maybe it can become a recurring thing. I don’t know. I just know that the senator is willing to sign off on that visit and all of hte other benefits if your information leads to the capture of Buffalo Bill and the recovery of her daughter.”

She folds paper back down on the clipboard, and stares back at Hannibal, matching his look with one that feels a little smug. “That’s the offer, doctor. Do you accept?”

Hannibal rests his elbows on the table, pressing his fingertips together in a pyramid shape and appears to be mulling over his options.

“An intriguing offer, Clarice. Did you have a say in creating it?” he asks, almost bemused.

“Yes sir.”

“I’m proud. You’re finding your footing at last.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’ll consider this,” he concedes. “I’ll need a night to sleep on it, you understand.”

“I - I understand, sir,” she agrees. “But we only have-”

“When I give my answer, you will have three days. Plenty of time, Clarice, I promise you that. And I always keep my promises, you know.”

She nods, and he smiles again and gestures towards the sliding slot. “There’s something for you there. While you retrieve it, would you mind enlightening me on your opinion as to why Buffalo Bill is concerned with the skins of these girls?”

Clarice mulls over the question as she goes over to the alto and pulls out a piece of soft appear. When she flips it over, she’s stunned to see _herself_ on the page.

She’s looking down, biting her lip, and smiling outright, even close to a laugh in that picture. She’s sure Hannibal’s only seen that expression for a split second, but it is a stunning likeness. She folds it and places it into her jacket pocket, looking up and meeting Hannibal’s awaiting expression.

“Thank you, Doctor. It’s an excellent drawing. To answer your question, most serial killers tend to take trophies from their victims, after all.”

Hannibal’s tone is amused. “I never did.”

“That’s because you ate yours,” Clarice fired back, an unwitting smile spreading across her face. Hannibal matches it, as he takes out a pen and begins to sketch.

“Now, tell me Clarice…”

 

 

_“...what is driving you to find Catherine? Are your horrors of your day following you into your dreams?”_

Frederick writes a quick note on his memo pad and adjusts his headphones as he leans back in his office chair. Keeping the recording playing, he finishes his email to Senator Martin:

_And myself and the FBI thank you very much for your cooperation, Senator. Agent Starling is the best the FBI currently offers in means of getting to Lecter, and the less she knows the better._

_Hannibal Lecter is being made a false offer as we speak..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah fuck, there's the wrench in the works, isn't it?
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens. Like, really thickens.

Hannibal doesn’t give Frederick so much as a look up as he practically saunters into the room some time after Clarice had left. It’s petty, and nearly juvenile, but nothing aggravates Frederick more than a lack of respect that he thinks he deserves. It’s not until Frederick clears his throat three times in a row that Hannibal even considers glancing up from his current drawing, but still refrains from doing so. He wishes he was left alone, he’s trying to decide on a perfect crest and Latin phrase for Clarice’s armor he’s sketching.

“May I help you, Frederick?” he asks, his attention on shading his drawing, adding a little more depth to his creation. He still does not grant him even the slightest bit of attention, but he can easily predict the expression on Frederick’s face: miffed, working his jaw as best he can, and looking put out.

He adds the slightest crease under Clarice’s eyes. The dark circles that have started to appear there, deeper at each visit, are left out. This is a drawing that seeks to celebrate, not replicate.

“I’d like to discuss Miss Starling’s meeting with you, if we can.”

“We may,” Hannibal says, to get under his skin _(so to speak.)_ “But I will not.”

Frederick ignores this statement and continues to tap at Hannibal’s nerves. “What was she discussing with you?”

“Frederick, it is lazy psychiatry to ask questions you already know the answers to. There’s less time for analysis and asking the questions you truly wish to ask. Unless, of course, you are stalling and require more time to think on your-”

“Are you _actually_ considering that silly offer she made you?” Frederick bites back, cutting Hannibal off mid-sentence. Hannibal still doesn't look up at him. “You’re too intelligent for that, Hannibal.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Frederick.” It’s like swatting at a fly. Too easy.

His pen traces a slight curl to the ends of Clarice’s short hair. He wishes that he had the use of colors, to make her hair brown and find the right shade of gray for her eyes, give her cheeks color, and a warm burgundy color for her favorite sweater.

Frederick presses on, a fly buzzing back for the sheer purpose of being irritating. His tone is condescending and Hannibal can hear the sneer in it. “Do you really think that a student, not an agent, not even out of the Academy, has the authority to make these sorts of deals?”

“I never believed that Clarice was the instigator in her deal, Frederick. However, I understood that she played a part in arranging these demands that the Senator is granting.”

“Well, you supposed _wrong.”_ Oh, he’s gloating, now.

Clarice’s arms and hands are usually turned inward, closed off from any sort of contact, real or imagined. Always tucked in, braced against her chest, resting in her lap, clutching a bag or a file. Never open.

Hannibal draws one of her arms outstretched.

“Oh?” he asks out loud, not concerned in the least.

“First of all, do you think that _anyone_ would allow for you and Will Graham to even breathe the same air? He’s too unstable, and _you_ certainly wouldn’t help his mental state.”

Hannibal doesn’t allow him an answer to play off of. He chooses instead to draw Clarice’s hand, not clenched in a fist or gripping her leg or a binder. Outstretched. Relaxed.

Frederick continues. “And, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but Agent Starling’s offer was not ran past the Senator. Not even through the upper chain of the FBI.”

Now it is taking the slightest effort to not look up.

“She led you astray. She _lied_ to you, Hannibal. She made promises she never intended to keep. Hard to believe, but she figured out which of your buttons to press. I can’t imagine that _that_ doesn't leave a significant blow to your pride.”

No response, but a sharper line is sketched across the page.

“I understand that you don’t want to listen to me. I understand, Hannibal. But I do have with me, an actual offer. Courtesy of Senator Martin herself. I’ll pass you the paper for you to read over. It allows you a different facility, so you can be none of my concern anymore. You will have a window. You will not be allowed outside. As of yet, though. It depends on your behavior. That’s what you are being offered officially by the FBI and the senator.”

Hannibal decides to finally look up as he digests this information, and watches Frederick pause at the slot, a smug expression on his face that is close to preening. He taps the rolled-up paper against the glass, trying to provoke a response. Hannibal doesn't give him one. So Frederick leans in closer to the glass.

“This offer does not guarantee half of the things Miss Starling promised you. But _she_ was lying; _this_ is an honest offer. If you give me the name by the end of the day, you can have all of the amenities offered on this paper. If not, you’ll have exactly the same amount of privileges as you do now. But I know you do enjoy being spiteful, and that you _despise_ being lied to. So I would give careful consideration to this offer.”

And with that, Frederick slips the file through the slot, smiles at Hannibal, and promptly turns on his heels and walks back out. Hannibal carefully sets down his pen so it doesn’t roll off of the desk, and stands to retrieve the paper. Once he has it, he goes back to his desk and sits down to read it over thoroughly.

Not just the offer, but between the lines.

He can _taste_ the disdain and the condescension made by the senator’s PA apologizing for the actions of Clarice Starling, who had given him a false deal in return for Buffalo Bill, all just to further her own future career.

 _That_ statement was a lie.

Clarice was untruthful, yes. But there is a difference between a lie and not knowing or sharing the truth.

He respectfully disagreed with the senator’s statement, looking back at his drawing. He used his finger to smear of bit of the undried ink in order to blot it.

He doesn’t smear her image.

That has been done enough to Jack’s newest sacrificial lamb.

Hannibal reads over the offer again as he etches a Latin phrase above Clarice’s form in his drawing: _Vincit qui se vincit._

_He conquers who conquers himself._

 

 

Jimmy Price in the lecture hall did not notice that Clarice Starling, head down on her side of the table, was asleep. He was too engrossed in his lecture to really pay attention to the audience reaction, but Nova Pilcher, his assistant, noticed. She shook her head to herself. She hadn’t taken Clarice for one to sleep in class, she’d seemed really dedicated.

In fact, it didn’t click until Clarice started moving in her sleep, until she fell right off of her chair and screamed before she even hit the green carpeted stairs. It gave nearly everyone around her a heart attack, and Ardelia was on her feet as Nova started up the stairs as well. But Clarice had shakily gotten to her feet first, and Nova and Ardelia got close to her and could see the smeared concealer under her eyes, revealing dark circles.

Clarice blushed before she could stop herself, feeling the eyes of all of the other students on her, judging her, knowing why she wasn’t sleeping.

She hadn’t been able to help it, it was dark and quiet in the hall and she had just rested her head for a moment, then found herself _trapped in the darkness of a maze. Maybe a labyrinth, but in near pitch-darkness, how could you tell? It was cold, and she could feel hot breath on her neck and then the bleating and crying and screaming started again and she couldn't-_

Clarice murmured to Ardelia that she was going home, and she left without another word. She kept her head up as she ignored the whispering around her, about what her job with Crawford probably entailed.

She left and wiped at her face, pinching the bridge of her nose and groaning to herself. She needed a cigarette, an Advil, and possibly a shot of vodka. She’s had enough of this.

And she was on her way through hallways to taste the windshield fluid called vodka she had in the apartment when a woman with a firm frown and a red pantsuit stopped her.

“Are you Clarice Starling?” she asked, no-nonsense. Clarice nodded, then spoke up.

“Yes, ma’am, I am.”

“My name is Kade Prurnell, and I’m one of the Inspector General’s top investigators.”

Clarice swallowed her dry mouth, not knowing why it had suddenly gone dry. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“I had meant to speak with you after your lecture. Here you are, but the lecture is not over. Would you tell me why?”

“I - I wasn’t feeling well,” Clarice said, trying not to stammer over the half-truth. Prurnell’s cold once-over wasn’t helping.

“Why?”

“I just - I just didn't sleep well last night.”

“Let me ask you a more pointed question, then: are you the student currently working with Jack Crawford?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Oh, there’s that shudder she had to force down.

“I see. And what does he have you do?”

“...Insight on his case, looking for new evidence, I recently-”

“Spoke with the incarcerated Hannibal Lecter, didn’t you?” Purnell's words cut straight to the quick and Clarice just nods. What else could she do?

“Yes ma’am. I have.”

“On multiple occasions?”

“...Yes.”

“Crawford sent you there?”

“I - I didn’t go of my own accord.”

“What do you know of Will Graham? I know you have to know something, if you’ve done your research on Lecter.”

“I - I do know he’s alive, ma’am.”

Prurnell looks as though she’s known this the whole damn time. “...Thank you, Starling. You may be on your way.”

Clarice couldn't stop herself from asking: “Ma’am, am I - am I going to be in trouble for this?”

Prurnell’s response is crisp as she already starts walking down the other side of the hallway: “That remains to be seen.”

Clarice’s heart this dully from where it has apparently fallen to her feet. She wipes her eyes again and groans when her phone rings. Crawford, again. She answers, barely restraining her sigh. “Yes sir?”

“Starling, we have a name.”

 _There’s_ her heart, bouncing all the way up to her throat. It’s really having a workout today. “We - we do.”

“Lecter swallowed the bait. He gave a name to Dr. Chilton.”

Suddenly, Clarice feels strange. Like when she eats in the dining hall on weekends when they’re just cleaning out the freezers and fridges. Something doesn't settle with her. “He - he didn’t send it to me?”

A pause. Jack wasn’t expecting that. “No. He gave the name to Dr. Chilton and instructed him to give it to the FBI. Not you in particular. Now, write this down, you're going to do some digging: Bille Rubin-Jonquil. Go, Starling. We don’t have much time.”

Clarice makes a note with the name on her phone, and attempts to talk to Jack. She gets no response whatsoever, as he’s already hung up.

It doesn't feel right.

_Clarice, I’m only considering this matter for your sake._

That was what Lecter had told her during their very first meeting. He doesn't care what happens if Bill is found or not. And he especially wouldn’t tell Chilton of all people.

But it’s a lead. They don’t have any, and Raspail’s head sure isn’t talking anymore. She bites her lip and heads back out the door, heading to the forensics lab to wait for Nova and Jimmy to leave their lecture.

She has questions. And goddammit, she needs answers.

After today, there will only be two days left to find Catherine.

 _I have promises to keep,_ she thinks to herself, Frost feeling appropriate for this moment. _And miles to go before I sleep._

 

 

Will feels blindly on his coffee table for the phone the FBI left specifically for the purposes of checking in once and awhile. He answers with an annoyed, “Yes?”

“Will Graham?”

“Who else would it be, Prurnell?” Will answers back, shifting his position in his chair. The monitor hooked up makes it impossible to relax fully. Prurnell doesn't see the humor in his statement.

“Have you been in contact with a Clarice Starling? Student at Quantico.”

Will puts on a mask of surprise to sell it over the phone. “Yes. How do you know?”

“My office received an anonymous tip that Jack Crawford was repeating history yet again and sending a goddamn trainee to -”

She doesn't complete her sentence because it’s not a good idea to mention the name of the cause of a victim’s ‘Stockholm Syndrome.’ She doesn’t buy the diagnosis and neither does he. It’s a miracle he doesn't roll his eyes.

“-And I’m asking if she had contact with you because she’s slipping into an abyss and it won’t be long before she loses her potential because of Jack Crawford. You spoke to her?”

“She found me on her own, Prurnell,” Will states. It’s the truth. However, he neglects to mention that he’s the one that called the tip in that she's in a snit about. “She’s an excellent agent-in-training, she found me by herself.”

“And you spoke with her?”

“She was apprehensive on her dealings with Hannibal, and she’s heard all the stories. You know how they … spread, after all.”

 _Alllll_ over the goddamn FBI, and the tabloids, getting to the mainstream media. One slip and the FBI’s flat on its ass again. Will smiles to himself and continues his point.

“But I’m - glad that you called, Prurnell. For once. Because - because-” he lets his voice hitch, lets it _waver,_ lets it become that unsure version of himself that existed a lifetime ago - “Because she’s getting t - too c - close. I mean, there was Miriam Lass, and then there was me, and - and now her.  Sh - she can’t go down that road well traveled. There is no path back.”

“Why do you care?”

Bedelia’s annoyingly lofty tone enters his mind and he uses her words. “I guess it’s an instinct of mine. When there’s a lost bird in the grass, it’s vulnerable. I want to help it. Isn’t that what Agent Starling is, Prurnell? A little lost bird that needs to learn to fly away before her wings are clipped?”

“What do you propose, then?”

Will’s glad that she can’t see his slow smile starting to spread across his face. He can feel a glint forming in his eyes. “I think that Jack needs to be reminded of what happens when the abyss spits his sacrifices back out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yo, if you've read the SOTL book, y'all know who Billy Rubin is! I'm putting my own little spin on it, but that is a thing directly lifted from the book because it's so perfect.)
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lies, lies, lies.

Clarice just stared blankly down at the white table in the forensics lab, her head barely supported by her arms propped up.

Her internal counter has wound up to eight now, she thinks. It could be that or the eight Advil in twenty-six hours. She can’t really make up her mind. Her mind’s not even swimming; it’s treading water.

She’s so fucking tired and she's afraid to fall asleep and get stuck in her dreams again.

A pink water bottle was sat down beside her head, and Nova’s hand patted her gently on the shoulder. “When’s the last time you drank water, sweetheart?”

Clarice shrugged. “Can’t remember.” She’d been taking the Advil with her coffees.

“Then drink some. Dehydration is the enemy, Clarice.”

“The enemy is out there ready to skin Catherine Martin,” Clarice muttered hatefully into the water bottle, the slightest hint of leftover Crystal Light present in the water. “And I don’t know where the fuck he is.”

“Jack sent us the email, there’s a name, now?”

“Yeah,” Clarice sighed, setting the bottle down. “But Jack hung up before I could tell him that that’s not going to be Bill’s real name.”

“Why not?” Nova asked, taking the seat across from Clarice. Clarice scoffed, nothing mean behind, just bitter and tired. Her blood sugar was probably low, Nova felt around her purse for a Fiber One bar.

“Because Lecter’s not going to just _tell_ us who Bill is, he’s playing a game,” she bit out. “It’s his entertainment, this whole affair. He wants to watch us all squirm.”

Nova chewed on her bottom lip, smearing her lipgloss slightly. She folded her arms across the table and leaned forward. “Okay. Okay, maybe he is. That means that the name is another clue, right? _Yourself_ was a shitty pun that turned out to be a clue, so what name did he give?”

Clarice let out another sigh, having to let it out again. She plastered on a sarcastic smile. “Billie Rubin-Jonquil. Ring any bells?”

Nova visibly narrowed her eyes, wrinkling her brow. “Did - did you just say _bilirubin?”_

“Billie Rubin-Jonquil.”

Nova blinked, working her jaw back and forth before saying to herself. “What a dick. Fucking asshole”

“What? Do you know what-”

“Clarice, I’m going to be blunt with you because that’s just my style, you know? I’m going to give it to you straight: he’s making a medical pun. ‘Bilirubin’ is a chemical compound used in the digestive system. Don’t know what Jonquil-”

“I know that part. It’s a narcissus flower,” Clarice interrupted, her fingers tapping steadily on the desk. “My, uh, old orphanage had a garden. They were in there. Yellow flowers.”

“Bilirubin is excreted during bowel movements,” Nova said carefully. “It’s a crude comparison to make. I thought Lecter didn’t do crude.”

“He joked about _having old friends for dinner,_ he’s not above base humor.”

“I see. Want to know something else? High levels of bilirubin are an early sign of jaundice. Hey, do you think-”

Clarice suddenly stood straight up, pushing her chair back. Nova could tell there was something bubbling under her surface. “You okay?”

“No,” Clarice replied simply. “I’m not. I have to talk to Crawford. Right now.”

 

 

Clarice knocked four solid times on Jack’s door before he finally called out for her to be allowed in. He seemed surprised to see her already. “Starling? You already ran the name-”

“It’s a _fake_ name, sir,” she said coldly. She wanted to bash her head against the door to the office in frustration.

“What do you mean?” Jack asked, his arms folded across the desk, looking up at her.

“He’s calling our _bullshit,_ Agent Crawford. He’s calling the FBI a bunch of _yellow-bellied cowards,_ narcissus flowers, think too highly of themselves, who are so full of _shit,”_ Clarice said helplessly, practically falling back into her chair. “But _why?_ Why turn his back on the case _now?_ I - I was telling him the truth, sir. I was making progress. We were-”

She looked up at Jack’s face, and the expression she read there was tinged in guilt. It settled in the pit of her stomach and disbelief coursed through her veins.

“I - I _was_ telling him the _truth,_ wasn’t I? You - you _told me -”_

The look on his face was a dead giveaway, and her heart sank. “You - you lied to me, didn’t you? You made me lie to him?

“Starling-”

“Stop with the bullshit, Agent Crawford,” she hissed through her teeth, emotions welling up in her throat. “What - what was the point-”

“Starling, it was decided that you would provide Hannibal Lecter with a decoy offer while a real one was being drawn up with Senator Martin for his later approval.”

“You made _me_ into a decoy,” Clarice said, disbelieving what she was hearing. “Not just your offer. You - you _set me up._ You _all_ set me up and tossed me into this mess, in there with him. J- Agent Crawford, he was telling me the truth.”

“Hannibal Lecter was playing you, Starling. It’s what he does.”

“So what?” she snapped, unable to hold it back, the bile rising in her throat. “Apparently so were you! It’s - it’s not fair. I - I have to speak with-”

“You are not speaking with Hannibal Lecter again, Starling.”

Oh.

 _There’s_ the nine.

That’s a fucking nine right there on the counter. She wants to break so badly but it’s not happening. _God, why isn’t this a ten?_

“Why not?”

“Because you are getting too close,” Jack said in a low, warning tone. “And I am not letting you get that close.”

“You already threw me in the goddamn lion pit, you think a rope is going to help me back out?” she bit out. “I’m already in too deep, Agent Crawford. Just - just let me go and speak to-”

“No.”

“But sir, he’s going to carry on with the impression that I lied to him. That’s a mortal fu- mortal sin in his eyes. You just - just pissed away all of my progress.”

Jack doesn’t crack. Clarice doesn't expect him to, but she’s so close to begging right now. The tears are forming in her eyes and this is worse than when he first dropped the binder on his desk and sentenced her to the monster in the labyrinth.

“You’re wrong,” she stressed, desperately. “Please, I have to-”

“You will not speak to Hannibal again. But tomorrow you may accompany me to BSHCI to discuss the next step with Dr. Chilton and - ”

“Don’t pretend like that’s some great honor for me,” she said through gritted teeth, so close to spitting she could feel it. “You’re pulling me away, Agent Crawford, Catherine Martin don't have time to spare, she’s _dying,_ she-”

It clicks, and she stands up, her chair falling to the ground. She doesn’t cry. She’s not going to give him that. “This isn’t even about Bill or Catherine, is it? It’s about your goddamn chess game with Lecter. And I’m the pawn you push back and forth and now you’re taking me off the goddamn board for good, aren't you? Because you’d rather sacrifice a pawn for the whole game, right?”

Jack's expression doesn’t change. “You’re going, tomorrow.”

Clarice swallows hard, and hates herself for nodding to him. “Yes sir,” she manages to say.

She walks out of the office, tears ready to fall. She doesn't let herself cry. She thinks she’s done enough crying.

 

 

When Clarice gets back to the apartment, she goes straight to the cupboard and takes out a plain white mug they’d gotten at a yard sale. Ardelia looks up from her book in time to see her fingers curl around the handle before smashing it against the kitchen tile with the anger coming out in a muffled scream.

“Clarice?” she said, making to get up but Clarice waved her hand away and grabbed the broom and dustpan. “What-”

“Crawford gave me a fake offer for Lecter,” she says plainly. “I lied to Hannibal Lecter. Right to his face. And I didn’t even know it at the time.”

Ardelia almost drops her goodman textbook. “You-”

“I’m _fucked,_ Ardelia. Crawford won’t let me go talk to him again. His last memory of me is of me lying to his fucking face. I’m - I’m done.”

“Clarice,” Ardelia said firmly. “You’re not fucked. You’re going to be okay. You can get through this. He’s behind bars, he can’t-”

“It doesn't help, Ardelia,” Clarisse muttered, sweeping her pieces in the dustpan. “It’s the knowledge of what I’ve done that’s eating me alive, not what Lecter might do.”

She dumped the pieces into the trash and threw the broom and pan into the closet. She pinched the bridge of her nose, accepting the hug from behind that Ardelia offered. It got a small smile from her.

It was small, but it was something. And something is usually better than nothing.

 

 

Clarice’s first thought in the BSHCI the next day is that she’s actually going to slap the accusatory look right off of Chilton’s face.

Goddamn, her head is already pounding.

“Jack,” he nods to Agent Crawford before looking her over again. “Miss Starling.”

She nods back. She doesn't trust herself to speak and let something stupid come out of her mouth. He turns back to Jack, “Jonathan has informed me that during a session of mine, Agent Prurnell had a representative sent to my office with some others.”

“Oh god, I heard the message this morning,” Jack said gruffly as they walked through the hallways and to the office. Clarice stayed silent. “This is not her jurisdiction, and she doesn't have anything that she could-”

Clarice hadn’t been paying much attention, due to the start of a severe migraine pounding away at her skull, but she sure as hell was paying attention as Jack’s words died on his lips as Chilton pushed open the door to his office. Both men froze as Will Graham stood up carefully from his chair, the ankle monitor blinking away. The two FBI agents with him were off in the corner, watching carefully.

Will smiles directly at Clarice before even looking at Jack or Frederick. His eyes bore into hers.

“Agent Starling,” he greets, his head tilting to the side. “It’s good to see you again.”

Clarice returns the eye contact with Will, staring into each other as though they are tapping into different realities and versions of current events.

_Long chain of events has led to this, hasn’t it?_

Clarice ignores the daggers being glared into the side of her head, into her neck, into other places on her body. The contempt, the indignation, the disbelief. She ignores it and keeps her head up as best as she can. She grabs an unwrapped Advil from her coat pocket and swallows it dry. At this point, if a hole tore open in her esophagus, it would be a welcome relief.

What frustrates her more than anything is that she's still stuck at nine.

Still at nine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, short little chapter for today, isn't it? Next update may be a little longer than usual because it's a big one! All the revelations, the screaming lambs, the Will Graham who's done taking shit! It's all coming, folks! So stay tuned!
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _My nails are broken, my fingers are bleeding, my arms are covered with the welts left by the paws of your guards—but I am a queen!_
> 
> _-Antigone, Sophocles_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this chapter was emotional to write, so I hope you all feel the feels!
> 
> (And yes, I used some quotes from the original SOTL, because you have to, you know?)

The Will Graham standing in this office is not the Will Graham Clarice had spoken with two times prior; all tense, with something darker brimming under the surface but easy enough to talk to. He is also not the Will Graham with sad, lost eyes in the photographs scattered amongst the thick files that she could read in her sleep.

 _This_ Will Graham had a glint in his eye, leaning agaist the desk like it was his with the ankle, and figures just grasping the edge of it. That faint smile she’d caught a few times was present.

He was - amused.

_(He reminded her of when Hannibal was in the middle of some very clever riddle and was waiting for her to ask for more help, or waiting for her to solve it and impress him.)_

That was it. That’s what was making her more uncomfortable than when Hannibal made eye contact, reading into all of her miniscule facial expressions. He had practice with it, it was a person-suit (Dr. Du Maurier’s dissertation had made that claim, and it had stuck with her) crafted over many years and held up under all kinds of pressure.

Clarice’s initial thought as she and Will looked back at each other was that Will’s person-suit does not fit. It’s not well crafted. It’s ill-fitting.

But as Will lets go and breaks their eye contact to look over at Jack and subtly changes his posture and demeanor, it dawns on her:

It’s not an ill-fitting suit.

He _tailors_  it specifically for the company he’s currently keeping.

She gets no further in her thoughts before Will tries to smile. Tries, like he doesn’t know what a smile is.

“Hello, Jack,” he says, words dripping with sarcasm. Jack narrows his eyes in return, choosing to focus on why Will is here instead of why he seems to know Clarice.

“Will. What are you-”

Will raises both hands, mocking a surrender, before letting them rest on the desk again. His fingernails make little tapping sounds, getting under everyone’s nerves. “Prurnell sent me, Jack. She said that you needed a refresher on some ancient history since you’re apparently trying to _repeat_ it. Besides, where would I go if I ran, Jack?”

“Here,” Jack says coldly, and there’s a twitch on Will’s face. He hadn’t twitched in front of Clarice. It doesn't feel real. But for a second, he resembled the Will Graham in the files, the one accused of being the Chesapeake Ripper when his mind was falling apart.

It had come back together now.

Will turned his expression downwards, lifting his left hand to trace over the open file on Frederick’s desk. “Any progress on Buffalo Bill? Guess not, if you’re back here. You could have asked _me_ to consult, Jack. Not like I have anything _else_ to do.”

Jack wisely doesn't respond, just takes a few steps forward more. Will looks back up from the file and over at Clarice.

“How you holding up, Agent Starling?” he asks, that hint of a smile coming back. She doesn’t answer him and once again ignores the stares from everyone else in the room.

“What do you mean?” Jack asks (more like demands, Jack never just asks.) Will puts on an innocent expression. If you weren’t paying attention, you could almost mistake it for being genuine.

“She came to speak with me, Jack. She took the initiative.”

Clarice decides to look at Jack and as expected, he’s looking pissed.

“Starling-”

“You told me to figure out how to talk to Hannibal Lecter,” she answered back, folding her arms and returning his unflinching eye contact. “And so I did research.”

She catches Frederick trying to get to his desk and set down his clipboard but Will’s cool glare makes him set it down on the corner of the desk and pretending to look busy straightening some books on the shelf opposite him.

The only other time she’s seen him this nervous was when she was late to her very first meeting with Lecter.

Will’s fingers scan over a crime scene photo in the open file. “Interesting method, you know,” he remarks. “Shoots them, skins them, dumps them. They’re objects to him, clearly. He has to differentiate himself as a human from them. He only wants parts from them. He needs to distance his sense of self from his victims.” Almost as an afterthought, he looks back up at Clarice and smiles. “Such as it is.”

That gets her thinking. “ _‘Such as it is?’_ Does he not have a realized sense of self? Is that-”

She’s taking a step forward as she speaks, and Jack stops her with a hand on her shoulder. It pisses her off for reasons she can’t quite identify.

“Starling, wait here,” he says, moving to speak with Chilton and the other agents in the corner, obviously debating what to do with Will being there. Will moves away from the desk and moves closer to Clarice. His eyes look almost sad for a moment before going back to something a little darker.

His voice is just above a whisper as he murmurs, _“Go.”_

“Wh - what?” Clarice utters back, her voice pitched down low. “What are you talking about?”

Will scoffs, but not out of bitterness or spite. Just - she could almost mistake it for fond exasperation. “Agent Starling, I didn’t agree to come up here for Prurnell’s sake. Or Jack’s sake. He’s not letting you see Hannibal, is he?”

“...No.”

“Well now he’s more concerned with me and worrying I’ll chew this ankle monitor right off my leg, he’s not concerned with you. Go down there and talk to Hannibal.”

She turned her head and scoffed back. “You’re here for your own reasons, Will, not to help me.”

A smile starts to break out on Will’s face. “Of course I am, Agent Starling, but they don’t concern you. Just like your reasons don’t concern me. Catherine Martin’s running out of time, isn’t she?”

“You’re asking me to trust you.”

“You don’t. I wouldn't bother asking. But you’re running out of time, _go. Now.”_

Will moves away from Clarice to start looking over the bookshelves at the same time Jack breaks away from the group and turns back to her.

It’s a stupid idea that threatens her career before it even starts. She shouldn’t even consider it.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” she announces, her hand already on the doorknob. “I’ll only be moment.”

“Where are you going?” one of the other agents demands, and the question is already on the tip of Jack’s tongue. She barely keeps herself from rolling her eyes.

“Ladies’ room, sir, do I need to spell it out?” she says, sarcasm thick in her tone. That evidently makes him uncomfortable, and he backs off. Jack waves her away, his eyes trained on Will, who is tracing one finger down the spine of one of the books.

With the A-OK sign she’s been given, Clarice closes the office door, turns to her left, and practically sprints down hallway after hallway until she reaches the guard station. She takes her coat off completely, tells the guard to keep it, and turns her pockets out to reveal nothing in them.

Her heart sinks for a moment when she realizes her small ball of yellow yarn is still in her apartment. She doesn’t have time to dwell on it before the doors slide open and she heads down the hallway until she’s standing before Lecter’s cell. Surprisingly, he’s lying back on his cot, not at his desk, holding one of his drawings with one hand and examining it closely. For once, he does not speak first.

_He’s being petty._

Clarice breaks the ice. “Your puns are showing again, Doctor. _Billie Rubin-Jonquil?_   Cowards who are full of shit. That’s you showing your distaste.”

Something like a smile flickers across his face, as he finally looks over at her. “Oh, Clarice, you need to learn to enjoy life a little more.”

“I don’t have _time,”_ she says flatly. “Doctor, I need to-”

“That _was_ an intriguing offer, Clarice. Well crafted and tailored to my interests. Was Will’s potential visit your personal touch?”

There’s no point in lying. She sighs, and lets out a soft, “Yes.”

“Yes,” Hannibal parrots back to her. She can see teeth in his smile now. “That _was_ a nice touch. A shame about Catherine, though. She's almost out of time.”

“Doctor, you have to tell me-”

“You’ve read the case file cover to cover, Clarice, just as I have. Everything you need to find Buffalo Bill is in those pages.”

She let out a huff of frustration, and that got him to sit up and cock his head to the side, interested. “Are you reaching ten on your internal counter, Clarice?”

“It feels like I’m getting close.”

“You’re not there yet. A little further, I would think.”

“Doctor, please-”

“Clarice, if I simply tell you who Buffalo Bill is, the relief and release of tension that you so deserve will not be as effective,” Hannibal says, as though he’s back in his old office and she’s a patient on his couch. “I believe it would be more therapeutic for you, Clarice, to finish your journey yourself. I’ve given you plenty of hints.”

“You’ve given me shit puns, Doctor,” she fired back, and Hannibal smiled at that, too.

“You’re starting to fray a little at the edges, Clarice.”

“Am I going to snap, then?”

Hannibal ponders this for a moment, then responds, “No. No, I don’t believe so. But you do surprise me. You are so close to your man, Clarice. Tell me, why does Buffalo Bill do what he does?”

“I - I don’t know, sir”

“Alright. Use your training. Tell me everything you know about him. Including your speculations.”

I don’t have time for this, Clarice sighed internally, but she spoke up anyway: “He’s a white male, hunts within his own ethnic group. Probably mid-to-late thirties. He’s methodical, cunning, precise. And he won’t stop until someone stops him or he dies. And - and he’s a product killer.”

“Elaborate.”

“It’s not the act of killing that, well, gets him going, so to speak. He wants the body, at least parts of them.”

“And why is that? What does he gain from killing and collecting the skin?”

“I - I’m not sure. He - he left a moth in the mouth of the third victim. He left a moth by the head of Raspail. Moths - moths represent c-change. Change. Does - does he want to change them?”

“Oh, you’re so _close,_ Clarice,” Hannibal encourages, looking nearly proud. “Warmer and warmer, you’re nearly in the fire itself. _You_ crave change, don’t you, Clarice?”

“Me?”

“You want to change. You want to become better. Now tell me, Clarice: what does Bill want to change?”

“I don’t _know,”_ she stressed, her foot tapping impatiently. Hannibal picks up on this.

“You’re not supposed to be down here, are you, Clarice?”

“No, sir.”

Hannibal’s eyes seem to brighten. “They will say I’m a bad influence.”

She has to hide the smile he pulls from her, but Hannibal still notices. She distracts herself by pacing the floor in front of the cell. He watches, and lets her think.

Come on, Clarice. Everything he’s told you is a joke, a game for him to play. With words.

_Wordplay._

_Yourself._

_Billie Rubin-Jonquil._

**_Billie._ **

Something gets her to stop pacing and look back at him. “You said ‘Billie Rubin.'”

“You've already acknowledged my jest, Clarice. What else could you extrapolate from it?”

“Because you were annoyed you had to give your answer to Chilton, even though it would hopefully eventually lead to me. You wanted to send a clue anyway. Billie Rubin,” she repeats, more to herself than anything. “Why - why did you use the feminine spelling of Billy?”

Hannibal doesn’t answer, but his grin spreads wider. He clasps his hands together, and leans forward from his seating position. “Now you’re putting all of the pieces together.”

_You crave change._

**_We covet what we see._ **

“He - he wants to change _himself._ He wants to transform,” she says, everything coming together at once. But why does he have to kill-

“The - the girls are what he covets. Not - not them, not as people-” Will’s words come into her mind, “-but as-”

Hannibal holds up the drawing he’s been examining all this time. Clarice almost does a double take.

It’s a drawing of her, in a suit that is in every sense her style. Around where she is drawn in the circle are sketches of the suit.

_Sewing patterns._

Oh.

**_Fuck._ **

“The skin isn’t a trophy,” she says, barely above a whisper. “It’s - it’s material. He’s - he’s making a suit. A - a woman suit.”

Hannibal’s smile is as close to genuine as Clarice has ever seen it. “That’s my girl, Clarice. There you are.”

She opens her mouth to ask another question, but he raises his hand to gently interrupt. “Just a moment, Clarice. _Quid pro quo,_ remember that? I give you what you want, you give me what I want. Tell me about why you left your uncle’s ranch.”

“Doctor Lecter, please, we don’t have time-”

“Then we are at an impasse, Clarice,” Hannibal says, the smile fading. He’s almost - disappointed. “You see, time is all I have left on my side. Something you have precious need of. _Tell me.”_

“No. I’m sick of being a pawn in everyone’s game, Dr. Lecter.”

“In whose game, Clarice?”

“Yours, the FBI’s.”

Hannibal tilts his head, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. “Of course you’re a part of my game, Clarice. But you were _never_ a pawn; you are the queen on the chessboard. The most powerful piece. You open the game, you end the game, you may go any number of directions on the board. That is your role, Clarice. The queen on the board. Now, tell me.”

“I _can’t,”_ she pleads, desperately. “Please don’t-”

“Yes you _can,_ Clarice. And know that _I’ll_ know if you are in any way deceitful. You have already tried that ruse once.”

That gets her blood boiling. “I never _wanted_ to lie to you, Doctor Lecter.”

“I know, Clarice. But that does not change the fact that you _did._ And you’ll require forgiveness in order to move forward. I do not forgive easily. Do you know why?”

“No.”

Hannibal’s eyes seemingly see past her for a moment, savoring an old memory. “Because true forgiveness is as rare as true love, Clarice. Now, _tell me.”_

She stands her ground. “I - I won’t.”

“Then we will wait here until you are collected and Catherine dies, I suppose,” Hannibal answeres sharply, rising to his feet. “Because I will listen _now:_ why did you leave your uncle’s ranch and go to the orphanage?”

They lock eyes and remain stagnant. Neither is willing to budge.

But Clarice feels herself ready to break.

It doesn’t feel like reaching ten, though.

 

 

Will runs his finger down the spine of Frederick’s book on Hannibal, drivel as it is. “Hmm, Frederick?” he says, as though he’s only just heard him speak. “What was that?”

“Weren't you listening to me?”

“No,” Will answers plainly, not even turning around. “I was not.”

He can hear the gritted teeth in Frederick’s response. “I asked you to sit down.”

“Oh,” he acknowledges, turning to where Frederick is standing on the complete opposite side of his desk to give the illusion of space. “No,” he repeats with a smile, and turns back to the shelf.

“Will.” Jack’s tone is more like that of an order. “Sit down.”

“No,” Will repeats once more, enjoying this. “I’m not under your employ anymore, Jack, and I sit too much during the day as is with this damn thing weighing me down. I’m going to stand.”

Jack doesn’t like this. Will decides he really doesn’t give a damn. He’s just biding his time, anyway. “So tell me, Jack,” he says offhandedly. “Are you borrowing Agent Starling’s imagination?”

He can feel Jack’s glare digging into the cheek scar on his face, but he continues speaking. “Amd are you planning on returning it in one piece this time?”

“Will.”

He’s stepping on a nerve and he knows it. “She’s not even started yet, Jack, and you’re going to throw her into the lion pit. Noble, really. I’m almost glad I was just shut up out in the middle of nowhere. No one knows where you are, or even seeks you out.”

“Starling did.”

“Because she’s in a better place than I was when you pulled me out of my class,” Will reminded, moving away from the bookshelf and walking over to the desk. Frederick subtly moved out of the way as Will traced his fingers across the desk, noting the pile of mail already sorted and scanned for Hannibal, until it landed on the recording device. He innocently picked up the headphones and went to listen when Jack had suddenly crossed the room and snatched them out of his hand.

Hannibal’s voice could be heard coming through the headphones, and Will tilted his head at the sound of his voice. Jack went to put them down and have Will removed so he could call Prurnell and give her a piece of his mind when Clarice’s voice came in through the monitor.

 

_“I woke up and I - I ran away.”_

_“Why, Clarice?”_

_“I woke up and I heard the screaming coming from the barn.”_

 

“Goddamn it,” Jack gritted out through his teeth as Frederick’s eyes grew wide. Will only smiled. Jack and Frederick headed for the door as Will followed, until Jack barked out: “He stays here. Will, you do not leave this office.”

He ignores the sudden change in Will’s cool demeanor before it melts off. That’s not his concern right now. They move down the hallway, down, down, down into the belly of the beast.

 

 

“...And I opened the gate door, but - but the spring lambs were - were stupid,” Clarice whispered, feeling like a child all over again. “They wouldn’t run away, even though I think they knew they were about to be slaughtered.”

“So what did you do, Clarice?” Hannibal asks, his tone disturbingly gentle.

“I - I picked one of them up, and I ran,” she murmured. “He was so heavy. I - I thought if maybe I could save just one then - then -”

She bit her lip, tears causing her throat to close. “I only got a mile away from the ranch when the deputy picked me up. I was grounded to the upstairs, meals and all, until they sent me to the orphanage.”

“And what happened to your lamb, Clarice?”

“They killed him,” she whispered. The glass is the only thing separating them at this point, they are so close to each other. “They killed him.”

Hannibal nods, ever so slightly. “And that is why you wake up in your sleep, why your dreams are restless. You still wake up to the sounds of those lambs screaming in the dark recesses of your mind.”

“Yes.”

“And you think if you can save poor Catherine, you can make them stop, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she whispered, choked up. Tears are streaming down her face now, but to Hannibal they are not a show of weakness, of supplication. They are honest, real tears, the results of barriers finally coming down.

Crying, since birth, has always been a sign of life.

“I forgive you, Clarice,” he offers. She uses her sleeve to dry her tears, and stares back at him with glittery eyes.

“Tell me his name, Dr. Lecter,” she demands softly. The corners of Hannibal’s mouth uptick into a small, almost sad smile. His eyes flicker up before returning her gaze.

“Jack, Frederick, would you give us a moment, please?” he directs over her shoulder and her eyes close in anger and disappointment. Hannibal makes a shushing noise, a smoothing tone. “Clarice, I know Catherine will be safe. She has _you_ looking for her.”

“Okay, Starling. Here, _now,”_ Jack barks. He almost sounds panicked. Clarice keeps her eyes trained forward.

“It’s your turn now, Doctor,” she insists, starting to feel slightly frantic.

_How is she not at ten yet?_

_“Out,”_ Chilton hisses through his teeth.

“Tell me his name,” Clarice demands again as she feels the hands of the guards and Jack pulling her away, back towards the door. Hannibal only stares at her fondly, his hand just tracing the shape of her face in the glass as she starts to be dragged away from him.

“Brave Clarice. Will you tell me when your lambs stop screaming? You will, won’t you?”

“Tell me his name, Doctor!” she insists, struggling against her restraints. Hannibal lifts the file from his desk.

“Clarice!” he raises his voice, the first time she’s ever heard him do such a thing. He steps in front of the sliding slot and holds the file up with a smile. “Your case file.”

That does it.

Clarice pushes hard against Jack's grip on her shoulder and she breaks free, and rushes back up to Hannibal against the glass. They maintain hard eye contact as he passes the file through. When she reaches through the slot to accept it, the tips of his left fingers gently hold her right fingertips for a good three seconds. It’s gentle, the calm eye in the center of the storm around them, and everything around them freezes for a brief second.

His left thumb brushes over all of her fingertips, and he smiles at her as though he’s been waiting all this time for this exact moment. “Goodbye, Clarice,” he murmurs, then lets her go. She pulls her hand back with the file a the same moment the guards grab her arms and forcibly escort her out of the room.

Hannibal stares after her, still smiling.

 

 

The guards don’t let Clarice’s arms go until they are two hallways away from Lecter, her arms aching from the awkward position and her ears ringing. Jack is giving her the tongue-lashing of her life and Chilton interjects and insinuates some bullshit, she’s not listening. It’s not until she's let go and she’s rubbing the pain from her left shoulder that Jack finally lays it on her:

“Starling, hand me the file. Now. I’m taking you off of this case for your own good. Go home.”

_Ding._

That’s a **ten** right there.

Hannibal told her that she wouldn’t know ten until she hit it.

She’s hit it now, but she feels strangely calm. Like she finally understands something about herself that she didn't understand before.

The word escapes her lips before she can think. “No.”

Jack actually turns around and stares at her in shock. “Did I just hear that?” he accuses. She glares back at him. She has never had a problem with eye contact.

“No,” she grits out through her teeth. Chilton almost rolls his eyes.

“Miss Starling, you’ve caused _more_ than enough-”

“Shut - shut the fuck up, Dr. Chilton,” Clarice interrupts, and _damn,_ it feels good to say it as he is visibly taken aback.

“Ex _cuse_ me?”

“Shut the _fuck_ up, I can’t fucking _think_ with you talking,” she declares, letting all of the emotions she'd bottled up start to leak out. “And sure, you can ban me all you want, nothing would be better than never setting foot in this goddamn place again. But, Jack, listen to me: keep me on this case. You have to.”

“Starling-”

“If - if you don’t-” she’s going to bluff, she has to bluff, “-if you don’t then I won't tell you how to find Bill.”

That gets Jack to stop in his tracks. “What?”

“He didn't tell me who he is, but I know how to find him,” she says, a smile twisting onto her face. Now she’s taking control of the chessboard. Now she’s making her move. _“Quid - quid pro quo,_ Agent Crawford. Give me what I want and I’ll give you what you want.”

Clarice and Jack engage in a staring contest and glared daggers into each other, unwilling to make a move, when Jonathan comes skidding in, halting in his tracks when he sees the tense situation.

“Uh, D-Dr. Chilton-”

“What?” Chilton snaps, visibly pissed. Jonathan swallows, and rocks back and forth on his heels. “There’s - there's a situation in your office.”

“...What?”

Bythe time everyone reaches the office, there’s the sounds of grunting and items breaking and being moved, and when the door is thrown open, there is quite the spectacle.

Will Graham, in a rage.

His ankle bracelet has been cut right through with a pair of scissors that is trying to be wrestled away from him. One agent off to the side fiddling with some sort object as Will manages to break away from the other one, his leg knocking him to the ground as he noticed the group in the doorway. He locks eyes with Clarice and goddamn, if that person suit isn't gone right now.

He makes to get closer to her, standing at the front of the group, scissors dripping with some blood from nonlethal, almost _comically_ shallow wounds on the guards. He takes steps towards Clarice, but she doesn’t understand why she isn’t frightened.

Jack’s arm comes around to pull her back, putting himself between her and Will, and Clarice swears Wil’s face cracks. His deep blue eyes that seemed so sure before are lost, scrambling for something real to cling to.

“What’s happening to me?” he choked out, tears brimming in his eyes, teeth grinding, his free hand pressing hard against his cheek scar like he didn't remember receiving it.

He has all the appearance of someone _shattering._

“You’re - you’re going to protect her from him but you didn’t do that for _me?”_ he croaks out. “I don’t - I don’t even remember who I was back- who I am -”

He’s cut off by the agent in the corner coming back into the main stage of the performance in front of them all, forcefully ripping Will’s hand away from his face as the other agent manages to get to his feet and wrangle the scissors away, grunting, “Anderson, you got the-”

“Yep,” Anderson says, taking the spare face mask in his hand and putting it on over Will. “He wanted to run down to Lecter again, this as close as he’s gonna get,” he grins, punctuating the last word by tightening the mask like how one would muzzle a mad dog. Will’s handcuffs, ankle cuffs are put on, and he’s escorted outside the office to await further instruction. Jack turns to Clarice. The stress is showing in his face.

 _“You._ Wait out here,” he orders, shutting the office door behind him.

So now it’s just Clarice in the doghouse now, with the dog quietly sitting and chained up within an inch of his life.

They make eye contact, and she can tell he’s _grinning,_ all sense of feigned madness gone now.

She finds herself grinning back as their fates are decided behind closed doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *fans self* I need an iced tea, I am DRAINED.
> 
> Next update's gonna be awhile, but we'll get some Clarice and Will profiler-bonding, so look forward to that!
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I said to the sun,  
> tell me about the Big Bang  
> The sun said,  
> 'It hurts to become.'
> 
> -Andrea Gibson

Hannibal _(when had he stopped being Dr. Lecter in her mind?_ ) had told her that when he reached ten, it was as though he was in a stasis before the repercussions took effect.

Clarice supposed she was in a similar stasis now. Nothing was crashing down yet. Like an elevator on a thin chord: hopefully it was too strong to break, because otherwise you come crashing down with it.

Supposedly if you jump right before the elevator slams into the ground, you’ll live.

But if you’re inside the elevator, how are you supposed to know when you’re about to crash?

Clarice came back to the present suddenly when a hand was laid on her shoulder and she flinched, hard. Anderson moved back. “Sorry, didn’t think you were jumpy.”

“I’m fine,” she replied coolly. “What do you want?”

“Watch him,” he said, jabbing a thumb in the direction of Will, who was silent as he sat on the bench, and his eyes watched everything before him. “He’s chained up, he can't go nowhere. I need a coffee to deal with this.”

“What do I do if he gets up?” Clarice asked, dryly. Anderson just chuckled, and she moved completely out of his way when he went to put a hand on her shoulder again. Seeing as he was denied that contact, he pulled his Glock out and offered it to her. He chuckled again.

“He won’t. And you’re a tough girl, aren’t you?” his voice lowers as he places it in her hand. “Shoot if he moves, or he’ll run right back down to Lecter if he gets the chance. Don’t why you’d run down to guy that tried to kill you, multiple times. But don’t let him move.”

And with that, he left with his partner to grab a cup of instant coffee. Clarice looked down at the Glock she held in a natural grip, then looked back at Will. He gives her the best questioning look he can from the mask.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Will asks, slightly muffled and amused. Clarice shrugs.

“Depends. Are you going to move?” she fires back. She can tell he’s smiling.

“I _can’t_ move, Agent Starling. We’re in a high-security mental facility. It would be - _insane,_ to try and escape.”

She folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow. “You already cut through your monitor, so it alerted the authorities when you did that. You wouldn’t have gotten far if you were planning to run.”

“I’ve been declared insane before. I think I get a pass,” Will says. It’s almost a joke. “Did you think I was going to run?”

“Down the hall. Not out the door.”

“Why not?”

“You said so yourself. Where else would you go?” she reminded. “It’s the _Stockholm Syndrome,_ isn’t it?”

“You say that as though you don’t believe the FBI’s official diagnosis,” Will teases. It sounds like a tease, at least. “I would be in jail if I wasn’t diagnosed, wouldn’t I?”

“They just don’t know where else to put you except in isolation,” she states, realizing she’s still holding the Glock. She thinks for a moment, then deliberately sets it down on the floor. Will watches her do it, but doesn't comment. Clarice continues her words as she stands back up. “They don’t know what to do with either of you.”

Will attempts to nod, but it’s awkward with the mask on. “What’s being debated in there?” he asks, about the office and the occasional quiet words that escape from under it.

Clarice shrugs, as if it doesn't mean much. It means everything to her, though. “My career. Hasn’t even started yet. It’s - it’s fucked,” she says bluntly. “There’s no way he’s going to let me find Bill.”

Will laughs, just a little, but it’s there, and shifts to his right as best he can, making space on the bench. “Jack can’t do _jack shit_ to your career, Agent Starling,” he reassures. “If you pass through the Academy, you’ll still be an agent. The worst he can do is block you in Behavioral Sciences. But Prurnell's pretty pissed at him, so you probably won’t even suffer those consequences. Jack's a lot of bark, and no bite.”

“Is that so?” Clarice replied, not moving from where she’s standing. Will moves his head as best he can.

“You can sit down,” he offered. It would be innocuous if it weren’t for his restraints and reputation. She scoffs.

“That's what the spider told the fly,” she tells him. Still, she crosses the space between them and pauses at the bench for a moment. Then, very decidedly, she sits beside him, turning her head to give him a look. “That's why I think you’re dangerous, you know. Knowing how to pull all of your threads to get what you want.”

This close, she can see his smile. It’s full of teeth. “And yet here you are. And if I could do that, I wouldn’t _be_ here, Agent Starling.”

“You’re playing the long game. Means you get a better payout when it’s all over,” Clarice answers back, leaning so her back hits the wall. Every rational part of her thinks that she should be running, or at least not be this close. But she doesn’t move.

“Why’d Jack stop you from seeing Hannibal in the first place?” Will asks, breaking their silence. She gives him a look almost close to tearing.

“So I don’t turn out like you.”

Will smiles again, and she smiles back. “No, that wouldn't happen to you. But why did _you_ need to see him, then?”

“Because I lied,” she says, and the mood shifts between them. “I - I didn’t mean to. I -”

“You knew you were doing wrong, but you thought it was the right thing to do,” Will replies quietly. “Morally, it was. But inside, it felt _wrong.”_

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I offered him something the FBI was not willing to give. Offer _anything,_ we can match it, they told me.”

“What was it?”

She gave him a knowing look, raising one eyebrow. “What else does Hannibal Lecter want in this life besides you?”

Will raises an eyebrow back. “That’s quite an assumption.”

“Is it?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t a _fair_ one,” Will conceded, trying to cross his legs. It was a futile attempt.

Clarice looked down at her hands clasped together in her lap. Her curiosity had always gotten the best of her before. No use to hide it now.

“Why do you keep going back to him?” she inquired. It was a gentle question. Will straightened, turning back to match her gaze. She reiterated her point: “After everything, you still go back. Or to put it another way, he keeps going back to you, despite everything you did to him. Why?”

Will doesn't answer right away. He chews at his words behind the mask, the cogs turning in his mind, and Clarice pulls at a loose string on her shirt. When he does speak, it has a tone she hasn’t heard from him: fond, bordering on reverence.

“Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog?” he asks. She nods.

“The scorpion offers to carry the frog across the stream, but the frog’s afraid of being stung. The scorpion reminds him that if he stings him, they both drown.” She pauses. “Halfway across the river the scorpion stings the frog anyway. When the frog asks why he’s gone and damned them both, the scorpion replies that it’s just his nature.”

Will nods, his eyes looking past her, past everything around them, back to some memory close to his heart. “There’s your answer.”

She’s not satisfied with that. “Is Dr. Lecter the scorpion or the frog? Are _you_ the scorpion or the frog?”

She catches his smile through the mask again. “I still don’t know, Agent Starling,” is his reply. “I still don’t know.”

They fall into an easy peace and quiet after that, two senses of selves in different states of acceptance. Sitting side by side, not saying a word as their fates are decided behind locked doors.

Clarice is startled that she isn't startled when Will’s shoulder gently bumps against hers. It’s almost like they are on friendly terms. “Can I tell you something?”

She nods.

“The path to paradise begins in hell. Dante, you know. You’re going to have to confront some darkness soon, Clarice.” He uses her first name for the first time. especially the path you’re heading on. You’re too afraid to let it in, too afraid of what will happen if you do. But here’s thing: it won’t consume you, Clarice. You’re too... _good_ for that. But you are going to have to let it in a little before you _drown_ in it. Does that make sense?”

Once again, she nods. “I understand.”

Something possesses her to bump her own shoulder against Will’s, and now it feels like they are on similar, friendly ground as they make eye contact and they both let out short little laughs.

“Thanks,” she murmurs when they quiet back down.

“Good luck,” he responds. And then they hear Will’s guards coming out from the employee room, and Clarice gets to her feet, and grabs the gun off the floor and pretends as though she’s been leaning against the wall to Chilton's office the entire time. Anderson retrieves his gun from her.

“He give you any trouble?” he asks.

She manages a smile. “No, sir.”

“Hardly ever says a goddamn word,” Anderson remarks, looking over at Will. Will stares into the distance, as though he’s seeing past everyone else and can see through all the walls and hallways to where Hannibal resides. “It’s creepy, like he’s always living in his own head.”

Any sign of light in Will’s eyes are gone. Clarice feels a shiver start at the base of her spine.

It’s never fully realized, as the door to the office opens and Jack steps out. He directs a tired almost-glare to Clarice.

“Starling.”

She straightens up, and meets his eyes. “Sir?”

“I’m going to make you an offer.”

Her hopes start to go up again. “Yes sir.”

“You have from the moment you pull out of this parking lot to the time it takes you to walk into my office to give me a plan or means of catching Bill. And I’ll keep you on the case. You can't assist in the arrest itself, I’m not putting you that close. But I’ll make sure the senator knows it will be you that helped save her daughter. Is that fair?”

 _It's the best she’s going to get._ “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

He nods. “Go.”

Clarice turns to go, and catches Will’s eyes one last time. He winks, once. She smiles in spite of herself, and leaves to get to her car.

Will doesn’t make eye contact with Jack, staring at the slate-gray floor. Jack talks to him, regardless. “Will? I’m going to explain where you’re going.”

“I don’t care,” is the cold response he gets in return. Jack ignores that.

“You’re going to a holding cell until late tomorrow afternoon, understand? To calm down. They’ll attach a new ankle monitor back at your house.”

Will doesn’t respond. His body posture radiates defeat. It hurts, but Jack gives the go-ahead and Will is brought to his feet and escorted down the hallway, away from Hannibal Lecter.

 

 

Meanwhile, Frederick slides the stack of mail from his desk through Hannibal’s mail slot. He narrows his eyes at Hannibal through the glass, and gives a smile.

“Enjoy your mail, Hannibal. I’m having you transferred tomorrow afternoon and your new facility has been told to hold your mail for the next _month.”_

Hannibal doesn't speak for a moment, instead choosing to walk towards the slot and take the mail. Frederick backs away from the glass, skittish. It’s a puerile form of entertainment, but Hannibal will take what he can around here.

“Thank you, Frederick, for the mail and the transfer. Though I would have appreciated at least another day’s notice. I must pack.”

Frederick sneers like he always does when he knows he doesn't have anything to snark back with. Instead, he bites his _(not really his, Hannibal thinks, almost delighted by the fact)_ lip and walks right out into the hallway again.

Satisfied, Hannibal begins to sort through his mail, stopping when he finds what he had been aching to open since the mail initially came through the slot. He had smelled it.

A small white envelope, no return address, no stamp, not even addressed to him. It had a lump inside of it, that was how Hannibal knew that it had missed the screening process. It must have been slipped into his stack. He carefully works his fingernail underneath the flap, and takes the greatest care not to rip it. When it is open, he removes the letter, folded over once. He lays on his back on his cot, reading the letter’s messy mix of handwriting and corrupted cursive:

 

_“Do not be afraid; our fate_

_Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”_

_― Dante Alighieri, Inferno_

 

_Now you’ve got me thinking in the words of Italian poets. Damn you. Yes, I’m damning you for that, forgiving the blasphemy, the murder, the cannibalism. The poetry, I cannot forgive._

~~_Of course I can._ ~~

_I think it’s time we end our game, don’t you? You’re probably waiting for my reason, now, reading that._

_Isn’t missing you a perfectly good reason? I know you miss me. I can feel it, all the way from where I am in Wolf Trap. Can you feel it, when I miss you, where you are?_

_How many of your drawings feature me in some form or pose? You better not be giving Frederick anything salacious he can publish, I don’t want the image of me in our bed getting printed in a trashy book with some hack psychoanalysis thrown in for good measure. I’ll never forgive you._

~~_I probably still will._ ~~

_You always made terrible puns about me being your Psyche, in the psychological terms and the mythological terms. You scratched yourself with your own arrow when we met, you said. And you fled when I saw who you really were, peeking behind the curtain, underneath the mask._

_If you run away from me like that again, with just another scar and not your nails or teeth left digging into my skin, I won't look for you._

~~_Yes I will. I always will._ ~~

_Do you remember when we were still coming to terms with this new life, even after I dragged us from the cliff? Scorpion and the frog. You may have stung me so many times and hurt yourself in the process every time, but I strung you and you let me nearly drown us. It’s our nature, you said as you draped an old fleece blanket over me from where I was sitting on the couch, still shivering even though we’d been out of the sea for a full two weeks then._

_It’s our nature that we’ll always poke and prod each other, but also drown for each other, as well._

_(Yes, to counter your undoubtedly next thought, I do remember then muttering through a stitched-up face ‘shut the fuck up’ and dragging you down onto the couch with me, stitches be damned as we kissed. For the first time._

_What else do you think I think about here, alone, whenever I touch my faded fleece blanket on the back of my chair?)_

_I could go on. I could tell you more about how much I miss actual cooked foods and not cans and occasionally delivered meals. I could tell you the silence here is too still, with no tension in the air we cause when we’re together. I could tell you all these things, hundreds more, thousands more, but I don’t have the words formed right now as I write this letter._

_So I think that it’s best you come to me. So that I can tell you to your face._

_-Will_

_PS: I miss you. I do._

_PPS: I love you. I really do._

_PPPS: I need you, Hannibal. _ _Pretty please?_

 

Hannibal does not cry easily, but when he reaches back into the envelope and feels one paper clip already twisted into the perfect shape, he comes very close to it.

He smiles, and opens the letter to read again.

And again.

And again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE WE GO, FRIENDS. Careers on the line, and twenty-four hours left for Catherine. And our murder husbands! So much still to come! Tune in next time!
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is time for our hero's journey to get to its final stages.

Clarice had never been so grateful for I-495 traffic in her entire life. She’d managed to make it right smack in the middle of rush hour traffic, and there was an accident up ahead. Thank god for the extra time.

She was living on borrowed time, now. She had bluffed, and Jack was giving her a chance.

Did she know where Bill was?

Hell. No.

She knew why he was killing girls, that was about it.

 _I need a new set of ears,_ she thought, putting her earpiece in and calling Ardelia.

It only took two rings for her to pick up. “Hey girl. What’s up?”

“Catherine’s future is my Sword of Damocles and I just got banned from the BSHCI forever,” Clarice said, finding herself laughing, the insanity of the day's events washing over her.

“What the hell did you do? Oh, please tell me you told Chilton to stop staring at you.”

“I told him to shut the fuck up,” Clarice said, smiling despite herself.

“Seriously?! Hot damn, girl, sorry I missed it.”

“Tell you all the details later. Look, Ardelia, I don’t know what to do. I have to come up with a way to find Buffalo Bill in, like ninety minutes.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain that later, too, look I’m stuck and I need help. Help me.”

Ardelia was quiet for a moment, then spoke back up. Her voice was calm, measured. “Okay. Start with some basics, okay? Where is he living?”

“I don’t know-”

“No, not _place_ where. _Where,_ where. As in, house, apartment, trailer, things like that.”

 _Oh._ “I - I’m not sure.”

“Well, think for a second. How does he kill them?”

“Starves them for three days, the first two were hanged and the other two, one bullet to the temple.”

“It’s probably not an apartment, then, if he’s starving them. He needs somewhere to isolate them.”

That’s good. “That - that’s good. But why switch methods?”

“I can guess,” Ardelia said on the line. Clarice heard the sound of a glass clinking in the sink, she could picture Ardelia cradling her phone between her ear and shoulder as she rinshed of the dishes. “It’s hard as hell to hang someone.”

“Huh?”

“Think about it: none of the girls were drugged or showed any sign of head trauma, they were awake and aware before they died. There’s no way they would just climb up a ladder or even a chair. He’d have to carry them, and that’s hard, they’re struggling against his grasp. But you said he’s not a process killer?”

“No. No, he wants their skin, how they die is inconvenient to him.”

“Then he has to have a two-story house, Clarice. He hanged them from the top of the staircase. Just a push, and he doesn't have to think about, the sick bastard.”

Lightbulbs were going off. “Y-yes. God, you’re brilliant, Ardelia.”

“I don’t get these grades for nothing, girl. Now, let’s look at the victims. Frederica Bimmel was the first one, wasn't she?”

Clarice couldn't help but catch a glimpse of the wreckage when she had to break right by it. Twisted metal, flashing lights. She blinked and went back to the conversation. “Yeah. But she was the third one found in the river. She’d been weighted down, unlike anyone else.”

“Why would he try so hard for no one to find her? Just because she was the first one?”

Hannibal Lecter’s voice suddenly invaded her mind, an inner voice speaking lowly.

_“How do we first start to covet, Clarice? We covet what we see every day.”_

Clarice’s heart shot up to her throat.

“Clarice?” Ardelia asked, sounding worried. “Clarice, are you okay? What was special about Bimmel?”

The traffic suddenly opened up in front of her, finally she had space around her.

“He knew her.”

She stepped on the gas.

 

 

Clarice smacks her hand on the _up_ button for the elevator and waited impatiently. When it opened, it was already mostly full with a few guys from her class leaving a lecture on hostage negotiation. She stood right in the middle, hitting the button for Crawford’s floor.

“In a rush, Starling?” Jameson said in his obnoxious tone, like he had any inkling of the day she had just had. “Crawford stretching you too far?”

She rolled her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, keeping her arms folded. She could just make out the taller heads around her looking down at her. “No,” she said calmly. “I’m finally figuring things out.”

_**Ding!** _

She got out on Crawford’s floor and headed out, her short pumps clicking like mad as she walks determinedly through the hallway. She knocked hard at the door to Crawford’s office.

“Come in.”

Clarice restrained herself from just throwing the door open and rushing in like a maniac. Instead, she opened the door and let it slam behind her as she made her way to his desk. Jack’s fingertips were tucked under his chin as she approached his desk.

“Starling. That was reckless,” he says as a greeting. “Hannibal Lecter is dangerous, and - and you had no authority or right to see Will Graham. He-”

“-is not the topic of discussion right now,” she interrupted, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I will have time to discuss my behavior afterwards. However, I know what to do.”

Jack nodded to let her continue. She took a deep breath, and started talking.

“He’s going to be out in Steubenville, Ohio. In a two-story house.”

“Why?”

“Because Frederica Bimmel, he knew her, sir. That’s why he tried to hide her body the most. And I know how we can find him.”

“How?”

“Bill was a former lover of a former patient of Dr. Lecter’s. That’s when he first started to get the idea to transform. Scan the refusals in Johns Hopkins and the other major hospitals that do gender reassignment surgery. Scan for anyone who was turned down for being too unstable, someone who's from Ohio. He was to change, Agent Crawford. That’s why he’s skinning them: he wants to make his own woman suit. An appearance for the rest of the world to see him in.”

Jack paused for a long moment, then asked: “Why is he doing this? Why does he need to change?”

“Because - because he doesn't want anyone to reject him anymore,” Clarice stated. “Raspail left him, the hospitals turned him down, so he’s taking matters into his own hands.”

Jack paused again, before he looked right into her eyes and nodded. “I’m - impressed, Starling. I apologize for doubting you.”

“Th-thank you sir.”

“You know I am not letting you on the arrest mission.”

Clarice kept her disappointment under her tongue. “I know, sir.”

“But it would be beneficial if you could meet with some of Kimmel's acquaintances. We need some background for the trial. And I will make certain the senator knows that you helped put him away.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Now go get some rest.”

Clarice left the office, but does not get any rest. Instead, she lays on her polka-dotted sheets and stares at the water stain on the ceiling, counting down the hours.

 

Jack’s text in the morning, when they only have ten hours left, states that they have a name.

Jame Gumb. In Steubenville, Ohio, just like she said. They had the address, and were on their way as he sent the message.

_Thank you, Starling._

Clarice orders a cup of decaf black coffee or not accelerate her racing heart anymore than it’s already going.

 

There are three FBI vehicles, two squads in riot gear, all parked around outside Gumb’s house. Jimmy Price, Brian Zeller, and Nova Pilcher were all getting dressed in their bulletproof vests and Jack loaded his gun.

It was time. The teams were waiting for the call.

Brian, Jimmy, and Nova nodded. They were ready, too. Jack took a deep breath.

He gave the signal.

The first squad broke the door down, shouting “FBI! Come out with your hands up!”

Jack followed the squad in, his team right behind him, holding their guns out. The first squad was scanning the whole, silent house.

It was - it was empty.

“Jack?” Brian said, very hesitant. Jimmy and Nova braced themselves for the onslaught of the fury of Jack Crawford. “There- there's nobody here.”

Jack’s mouth turned down into a deep scowl.

 

_Knock knock_

A man with messy yellow hair opened the door, enough to look through the chain lock. “Yeah?”

Clarice smiled politely as she held out her badge. “Good afternoon, sir. I’m with the FBI and I’m asking around about Frederica Bimmel? I understand Mrs. Clara Lippman was her employer. Does she live here with her son?”

“Nah, the Lippmans don’t live here no more,” the man said, hurried, and was about to shut the door when she tried another tack.

“Well, did they leave any papers or something? It would really help the case, you understand.”

“Nah, they left nothin’ like that,” the man said. He paused, then said, “I might have her son’s business card, though. You can come in while I look, if you want.”

“Thank you kindly,” she agreed, letting him unlock the door and waving her inside. She shut the door behind her as he went over to a desk. “I didn’t get your name.”

“J-Jack Gordon.”

“Clarice Starling,” she offered back.

“FBI, huh?” he asked over his shoulder as he made his way over to his desk in the living room.

“I’m still in the Academy,” she admitted. “But I’m working the case.”

“They gettin’ close?”

She smiled. “Hopefully.”

Jack Gordon was rifling through a Rolodex of cards when Clarice felt her phone ring and she pulled it out of her pocket. “Excuse me,” she nodded over to him. He nodded back and she answered it. “Agent Crawford-”

 _“Starling, we had the wrong house, there’s no one here.”_ Jack’s words were harsh and bitter and cut right to her core.

“Wh - _what?”_

_“He’s not here, Starling, you were wrong.”_

“That - that can’t be right, sir.”

 _“I’ll tell you all about it when this over, Starling, we’re running out of time,_ _fast. You were on the right track before, I need-”_

“I’m _thinking,_ sir,” she said, closing her eyes to take a deep breath. She opened them again to see something fluttering around her hand. Some kind of bug, no, a moth, had landed on her ring finger, and she shook her hand to get it off. It flew away, landing on the August edition of Sew News before it spread out its wingspan.

The markings resembled a skull.

Death’s Head moth.

Nova’s words entered her mind:

_“They’re native to East Asia. They’d have to have been shipped in to be in the States.”_

Clarice felt the grip on her phone start to go slack and her heart sink as she looked up straight into the eyes of Jack Gordon.

No. He wasn’t ‘Jack Gordon.’

He was Jame Gumb.

_Buffalo Bill._

He was holding out a business card, and giggled at her. But his eyes held absolutely nothing that even closely remeshed mirth. There was nothing but darkness swirling in them as they stared at each other, and the only sound was Jack barking into the phone.

“Do you, uh, still want the number?” he snickered. Clarice felt her teeth bare as she pulled her Glock out of the holster, the phone falling from her hand onto the musty red carpet.

“Put your hands behind your head,” she ordered, forcing down any tremor or other sign of fear, “and turn around, up against the wall, spread your legs.”

He was still grinning at her as he let the card flutter to the ground, holding his hands up as he started to slowly turn around. He kept turning, and then suddenly sprinted into the kitchen.

“Freeze!” Clarice shouted, sounding shrill, snapping up the phone from the floor and rushing after him without thinking.

 

“Starling? Starling, what the hell are you doing?” Jack barked into the phone, then immediately started retreating when Clarice’s bordering-on-panicked voice spoke softly into the phone.

_“Jack - Jack, he’s here! He’s here.”_

Jack straightened up so fast that Jimmy Price almost fell over. “What? What was that?”

_“He’s here, Jack, I know it’s him, he - it’s Gumb. He had a fake name on the house, that's why - I’m looking for him right now, he ran away from me. I have to find him.”_

“Starling, you listen to me. Get out of the house now, or else-”

_“Jack, I can’t, he’s going to kill Catherine. He’s going to kill his hostage before he considers resisting arrest. Jack, I have to find him.”_

Jack ignores the familiar gnawing feeling that reminds him of the last time a trainee called during a dire situation. “Starling, stay on the line, do not hang up.”

 _“I - I’m not.”_  Panic is just under the surface of her voice. _“I’m at the Lippmann house, she’s not here, he took over the house, there’s - the basement door is open. He’s down there, Jack, I have to find him.”_

“Star- Clarice, listen to me, you get outside right now, you hear me?”

There’s a muffled sound on the line and the sound of Clarice inhaling sharply. “ _Jack, that’s - I can hear Catherine, she’s - she’s screaming, he’s down there. I have to-”_

The line went dead.

“Starling? _Starling?!”_ Jack shouted into the phone, getting his crew’s attention, and he finally shoved his phone back into his pocket. He turned around and barked out, “Belvedere, now. We have no time.”

 _Oh god, not another one,_ he thought to himself as he punched the side of the steering wheel as they pulled out of the parking lot.

 

“...he’s down there. I have to find him before he kills Catherine, sir. Sir?” Clarice repeated frantically into the phone. “Jack? Jack!”

She ripped the phone away from her ear to see that the cell service had cut out halfway down the rough basement stairs. “No,” she croaked. “No, no, no, no, fuck, _fuck fuck.”_

She now had two choices: go back upstairs and call back, and wait for backup, or go down and find Gumb herself.

The muffled feminine scream down below her made up Clarice’s mind. She put her phone in her pocket, clutched her Glock, and made it all the way down the stairs. As soon as she opened a door into one room, there were two more doors to go through in the dusty, claustrophobic space.

Another muffled scream that sounded like a lamb bleating pierced Clarice’s heart. She steeled herself and wrapped her hand around a doorknob, ready to immerse herself fully into the maze of rooms in the basement.

The yellow ball of yarn in her pocket, that was her only grounding thought as she slowly opened the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was a fun fic! Hope you all enjoyed, it's all over - no it's not, how could it be? Our hero's in the maze, our monster is looking for her, there's a damsel in distress...oh, and two Murder Husbands kept too far apart for so long. What's gonna happen now? Tune in next time to see!
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 Samuel 22:38-39 
> 
>  
> 
> _I pursued my enemies and crushed them;_  
>  _I did not turn back till they were destroyed._  
>  _I crushed them completely, and they could not rise;_  
>  _they fell beneath my feet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always found it fitting that Clarice's final enemy, after most of the men around her (who aren't cannibals) want a piece of her in the metaphorical sense, wants a piece of her in the literal sense.

It was so musty down in the basement that when Clarice took a shaky breath, she could feel the dust coating her lungs. Her finger was on the trigger as she threw the door open, and what first met her gaze was tacky red lighting.

 _Cherry Bomb_ by The Runaways thumped loudly in the background from a radio in the corner. Magazine cutouts dotted the walls, a vanity with string lights draped across the mirrors had makeup scattered across it, and the half-finished woman suit, one breast and all, was displayed with prominence on a headless mannequin.

Clarice forced the bile down as she heard desperate calling from the next room over. It was harsh, desperate, made thick with tears as a dog barked along with her.

“Hello?! I’m down here, I’m down here!”

Taking another shaky breath, Clarice followed the sound of the voice, trying to find the source.

She hated that Hannibal’s words came into her mind: _“In a true labyrinth, Clarice, there are no dead-ends or false passageways. In a true labyrinth, all paths lead to the center.”_

_That is what you are, Clarice. The center of the labyrinth._

She looked around the room one last time, and noted the two doors, one to her left, and one straight ahead. She tightened her grip on her gun, headed for the door right ahead of her, and pressed her back to the left of the door, her hand tentatively reaching for the knob. She counted to three, and threw the door open.

Nothingness greeted her.

_Your dead end dreams don't make you smile!_

There was nothing but stone walls around her, and about four other doors in a circle surrounding a deep, dry well in the center of the area. She quickly pulled the door closed behind her and tentatively stepped away from it, slowly making her way against the wall to the next door. The crying and barking was louder now.

“C-Catherine Martin?” she called out, trying to not let her voice waver. She had to be the strong one now. She had to pull through.

 **“Yes!”** sobbed the voice again. It was so much closer than before. Clarice let out a sigh of relief, even as she held her gun out in front of her, not letting her grip soften.

“FBI. You’re safe, now,” she declared.

“Thank you,” Catherine cried, “Get me out of here!”

Catherine stood on her tiptoes to look over a crack in the wall, just to be safe. Gumb wasn’t there, it was both a blessing and a curse. She grabbed a nearby shovel and stuck it up under the knob so it wouldn’t reopen. “You’re okay now, Catherine, now where is he?”

“How the fuck should I know?! Just get me out of here!”

Now it was obvious: the voice and the barking was almost right in front of her. They couldn't be -

_Hello, daddy! Hello, mom!_

_I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!_

Clarice took a few steps forward, surveying the area around her before peering down into the dry well. “Oh my god,” she breathed out.

Catherine Martin was near hyperventilation, shaking in a thin dress and clutching a white poodle in her arms. She stared up with desperate, pleading eyes, and Clarice had to swallow hard.

“Now, Catherine, I need you to listen to me,” she ordered, but tried to be soothing at the same time. “I’m gonna get you out of there, okay? But I need to leave this room, I’ll be right back.”

And then she pulled herself away from the well, and turned back to the doors before her as the dog started barking up again.

“No! NO! Don’t leave me here, you fucking _**bitch**!”_ Catherine screeched, panic overtaking. “This guy’s fucking crazy, he’s going to kill me!”

Clarice slowly backed up against the walls again, taking small steps along the way, checking the corners and holes in the walls.

“Catherine! The other agents’ll be here any minute, now you gotta be quiet, and shut that dog up!” she called out, desperately try to keep control of her voice, and deciding to go for the last door on her right and then work her way back once inside. Her hand was just on the doorknob, and she felt the trigger on her gun.

 **“WAIT!** COME BACK, DON’T FUCKING LEAVE ME HERE!” Catherine screamed, starting to sob again.

“Quiet!” Clarice snapped without thinking, and Catherine and the dog finally went quiet, save for her tears. Clarice took another deep breath, and flung the door open.

He wasn’t in here, either.

She breathed again, steadying herself before surveying the room, checking corners and behind the doors. There was tanning equipment and chemicals, a big table in the middle probably for dissection. Not an operating table. They’re not people anymore once he kills them. They’re just material. A set of skinning knives are laid out on a stained table, but the instruments are clean. A few more moths are attracted to the carbon dioxide she breathes out, and she shooes them away.

There’s only a few rooms left to search. It’s crucial that she finds him before he circles back around and kills her or Catherine. Unless, of course, he already fled the basement and managed to creep back up the stairs for a weapon, or lock and damn them both down here. She pushes those thoughts away. She doesn't have time to consider the worst now.

Carefully, she makes her way around the table, back to the furthest door from the center. He has to be in there. Slowly, she wraps her hand around the knob and she leans against the wall to brace herself before she turns the knob and throws the door open, jumping into the doorframe. Her mouth drops open and her hands shake at the scene before her.

The corpse of Mrs. Clara Lippman rots away in an antique bathtub, melting in her own decomposition.

_Hello, world! I’m your wild girl!_

_I’m your ch-ch-ch-cherry -_

Suddenly, the world goes pitch black, and the music dies with it along with the hum of the heating system. Clarice can only hear the sound of her own unsteady breathing, and in her haste to cover her back, she trips on the uneven flooring and falls onto the ground.

 _Fucking piece of shit cut the fucking power,_ she manages to think, then pulls herself up off the floor. She feels the air in front of her, seeking out something to ground her. When she feels the doorframe, she reaches into her pocket for her phone to use the flashlight.

Her phone is not in her pocket. She swears internally, it must have fallen out when she tripped. She couldn't do anything about it, she’d be a sitting duck to crawl around on the floor. Closing her eyes to center herself didn’t do anything at first, it wasn't any darker behind her eyelids than the darkness around her.

_The path to paradise begins in hell._

_You’re going to have to confront some darkness, soon, Clarice._

Will Graham’s words are swirling around in her head, now.

_You are going to have to let it in a little before you drown in it._

_It’s not necessarily a bad thing._

Clarice opens her eyes again, and is met with nothing but oblivion. As though it’s creeping up inside of her, seeping in through her pores.

She lets it in, just a little. Just enough to center herself.

She keeps walking forward, her hand reaching out to guide her way. When she stumbles a little, she keeps backing up until her back hits the wall, and she can navigate a little better.

If she can make it back to the stairs, there’s a chance she could get to the stairs and find a flashlight or the emergency power. It’s her best shot; she’s useless in the dark.

She suddenly feels a presence behind her. She turns around, feeling the air in front of her, but she finds nothing but darkness and silence. It’s playing tricks on her, she decides, she’s just getting jumpy.

She keeps moving, taking small steps, small steps. She had passed through one door frame, there were only three before she made it to the stairs. She could do this, she reassured herself. She could do this.

However, just as she takes steps in the middle of the room, away from the supportive wall, there is the definitive sound of a gun clocking.

Right behind her left ear.

Clarice reacts by instantly whirling around, her finger pulling on the trigger as soon as her feet skid to a stop, shooting again and again and again.

It’s two shots and the flash from the gun that she can see the outline of Jame Gumb lit up right in front of her, and his choked gasp as there was a solid thump in front of her and something warm and wet spattered onto her face. She kept firing, and ended up shooting through the boarded-up windows, finally letting light get into the room. It was only after what seemed like hours, but only ended up being about ten seconds, that she ran out of bullets. She hit the ground, hard, to avoid a retaliation and to reload. But she shakily reloaded the gun, she heard gurgling from in front of her.

Holding the newly-loaded gun in front of her, Clarice beheld the dying body of Jame Gumb in the late afternoon sunlight. He was wearing night-vision goggles, a 22. on the floor beside him, and three close-range bullet holes in his chest.

She stood on shaky legs and moved so she was standing over him, pointing the gun down at his face as she kicks his own weapon away. His fingers were curled like claws and he convulsed once, before letting out a final gurgle and going still in rigor mortis.

Clarice stands there for a few more minutes, just breathing hard, until she finally accepts that he’s dead, and that he won’t get up again. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.

She falls back against the wall, and slowly slides down to the cold, stone floor, her head tilting up towards the ceiling. The warm sunlight filters in across her face, but doesn’t cover the whole room. Just her face, where sticky drops of blood dot her face.

Clarice closes her eyes and lets the gun fall from her hand as she starts to come down from her adrenaline high. And finally, _finally,_ lets herself take a relaxing, well-deserved deep breath.

She won.

 

 

“Starling? Starling!”

Clarice’s eyes flutter open just as the sounds of the heavy stomping of FBI personnel works their way through the maze of rooms. She doesn't know how long she’s been sitting there, but it suddenly strikes her that she should call out, they don’t know if she’s alive.

“H - here!” she calls out, her voice strikingly calm. “I - I’m okay!”

Jack Crawford slams the door open and rushed in, gun drawn, Nova Pilcher right behind him. They both freeze and take in the scene of Jame Gumb, dead at Clarice Starling’s feet and his blood smeared across her face.

For a moment, no one says anything. Then Nova breaks the silence, heading over to Clarice and hesitantly reaching out.

“You - you okay?” she asks softly, offering a hand to help her up. Clarice smiled weakly, accepting the hand and shakily getting to her feet.

“I’m okay,” Clarice sighs, out of relief, more than anything else. She’s amazed at how calm she feels, like she’s in some sort of afterglow or high. “He, uh, he cut the power when I chased him down here. I - he was going to kill both of - oh, god,” her eyes widen as she raises her voice, “C-Catherine! Cather-”

Nova grabs her hand and squeezes it tight. “It’s okay, Clarice, she’s alive. She’s okay, we’re getting her out now. You saved her. It’s all okay.”

Clarice nods, and she relaxes again. She feels calmer than she has in a long time, as though a weight has been lifted from her at long last.

“Starling.”

She looks back at Jack Crawford, making direct eye contact, and neither of them falters. He nods once. “I - I’m glad you’re alright,” he says, honest for once. “Good work.”

She smiles, and feels the dried blood crack on her face. Nova and Jack lead her back up the stairs, talking about how she can go home now, that it’s all okay. Just a couple more steps, there we go. She kind of tunes it all out, the adrenaline high still coursing through their veins.

It all blurs together until they climb up the stairs and walk through the opened front door, and Clarice is met with the flashing of cameras and flurrying words of the hungry press. She blinks and turns her face away, the blood cracking a little more. She makes her way down the steps, avoiding the press questions until Freddie Lounds steps in front of her, getting a good shot of Clarice's wide eyes and caked blood on her cheeks.

“Freddie Lounds, Tattle Crime,” she grins, pulling out her tape recorder. “I’d _love_ it if you could offer a few words, can I get you anything in return? I’d like to know how Jack Crawford chose you out of everyone else in the Academy, usually he has bad luck with profilers. Let’s sit and chat, can I get you anything?”

 _A goddamn cigarette,_ Clarice says in her mind, but she walks away before it comes out of her mouth, ignoring her entirely. Freddie chooses to snap a picture of the Senate and Catherine embracing and makes her way over to them instead.

Clarice grabs a cigarette out of the pack in her glove box and lights up, leaning on her passenger side door. She breathes out the smoke and feels the blood crack yet again on her face.

She has a whole ten minutes of peace and quiet until Jack comes up to her, gives her her phone back that was found in one of the rooms, and tells her in a hushed tone, “Come on, my office.”

“I thought I could go home.”

“This is urgent. I’ll have your car brought back, you can take the helicopter with me.”

Clarice nods, flicking the butt onto the dirt and steps on it. Jack looks her over one more time, then gestures awkwardly to her face. “You should wash the blood off.”

 

 

Clarice, for the first time doesn’t hold back the eyeroll when Dr. Chilton is waiting rather impatiently outside the BSHCI.

“My time is precious,” he sneers, holding a folded letter over to her.

“So’s _mine,_ I want to go home,” she snaps back. “What is this?”

“Hannibal was rather insistent this get to the intendant as soon as possible,” he says, obnoxiously smug like he’s got it all figured out. “You’re rather _testy,_ Miss Starling.”

“Yeah, well I fucking _shot_ someone today, I think it’s warranted,” she says with a sickly sweet, glaringly fake smile, leaning against the brick wall of the building and starting to read the letter to herself, ignoring.

 _Beatrice,_   ( _cute,_ Clarice thinks)

_I confess, you occupy the majority of my thoughts these days. I have been concerned with the the words of Alexis Carrel, the surgeon that helped pave the way for organ transplants, that follows thusly: “Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.” Does that not hold true for us?_

_How many times have you remade yourself and suffered? How many times must we carve away at ourselves in order to become what we are today?_

_Michelangelo himself claimed that he never simply sculpted: he saw an angel in the marble and carved it free._

_I wonder if you were not carved from one of those very blocks of marble, and set free in the world, like Shelley’s progeny. Far from hideous, but blessed into being._

_I assume you are rolling your eyes, now. I would expect nothing less. I hope it was done with a fondness I have been privy to over time. It’s those memories that I am compelled to savor when I find myself longing for your company._

_And I will see you before long, I assure you. The game we have played until now are at an end._

_Would you be surprised to discover there is not decided winner, no loser? I would assume not. Though, I confess, I find myself unable to predict you, yet again._

_Yours truly,_

_Hannibal Lecter_

 

Clarice looks back at Jack and Chilton, then back down at the letter. She digests the words slowly, thinking over the meanings and finding that she doesn't understand half of what he’s implying. Nothing that he has mentioned before to her is present in this letter. His words to her had been laced with amusement, maybe fondness in a teasing manner.

This feels like a heart written in beautiful calligraphy across a page.

She looks again at the intended recipient’s name.

_Beatrice._

She suddenly laughs, and she thinks it scares the other two men for a minute. She passes the letter to Jack and shrugs. “That’s not for me,” she says simply.

That startles both of the men for a minute. “Excuse me?” Frederick says sharply.

Clarice keeps smiling, as she pulls a cigarette from the pack in her pocket, along with a lighter and her phone. She shrugs. “It’s not for me.”

“What are you-”

“He needed an excuse for you to be busy, and he planned it for when the FBI was operating to capture Gumb.”

There’s a long pause. Jack’s voice is low and threatening when he breaks it, “What do you mean?”

Clarice finishes sending a text for Ardelia to pick her up now, and holds a cigarette between her fingers as she tries to get her cheap lighter to start working. She shrugs yet again, not dignifying either of them with a look yet.

“I don’t know, Jack. But I’m just saying there’s a recurring theme of Dante in Dr. Lecter’s drawings and other works. And Beatrice was the most important person in Dante’s life, the _love_ of his life. She put him through every level of Hell before they got to be together. I don’t think I was the intended recipient of this letter.”

Finally, she lights her cigarette and takes a long drag, before finally looking over the stunned expressions of Jack and Frederick. She shrugs yet again, not sure why she’s so calm about this.

“Dr. Lecter wasn’t playing chess against _you,_ Jack. You were a piece on the chessboard, so was Dr. Chilton, and so was I. He was playing it with-”

“Will,” Jack finishes solemnly, always reaching into his phone to call for a squad. “His ankle monitor didn’t go off, he hasn't left his area and it hasn’t been tampered.”

“I’m - I’m calling the transport-” Chilton starts to say, to reassert himself as he dials the number, but Clarice cuts him off, breathing out her smoke.

“They're dead,” she states. “They’re all dead. Game over, just like the letter.”

Nobody answers Chilton’s call. Jack turns to her, already about to pull her back onto another case.

“Starling-”

“I was getting _too close,_ Jack, remember?” Clarice reminds, throwing his words back in his face. “I’m not playing anymore. I’m going home, now. You made your bed, Agent Crawford.”

She drops her cigarette on the ground, crushing it under her heel as Ardelia’s car rolls up. She finds it easy to smile at him, perfectly innocent on the surface but she knows he can feel the resentment behind it.

“Now _you_ lie on it.”

And with that, she turns and walks away, to Ardelia’s car, and almost passes out from sheer exhaustion in the passenger seat.

 

 

It’s not until later that night, when they’re both in their pajamas and bunny slippers, and Nova is there as official FBI protection detail (because Jack still thinks Lecter is looking for her, as if he wouldn't have just grabbed her if he wanted her) that Ardelia asks Clarice the burning question.

“Are - are you scared?” she asks, topping off everyone’s hot chocolate. She’s already listened to the whole story about Gumb’s basement, now she wants to know about Lecter. Clarice shakes her head as she accepts the popcorn bowl back from Nova.

“No. He won’t come after me. I know he won’t.”

“Oh, really?” Ardelia asks, eyebrow raised. Clarice nods, brushing her still-wet-from-the-hour-long-shower hair from her face.

“I can’t explain it,” she admits. “But he would consider that rude.”

“Besides,” she can’t help but add as she looks at the old file still on the coffee table. “I’m not the one he wants.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you caught the subtle Phantom of the Opera quote, gold star for you!
> 
> I wonder what the next chapter is about? Could it be that sweet, sweet slow-burn Hannigram we've all been waiting for for over twelve chapters? I wonder ;)
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you.”
> 
>  
> 
> _\- Jane Eyre_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WUV. TWU WUV. IS WHAT BWINGS US TOGETHA TODAY.
> 
> Here we fucking go, people.
> 
> The 'violence' part of the title really comes into play now. There's gonna be some...stuff. So get ready!

_Earlier on the same afternoon as the slaying of Buffalo Bill **  
**_

 

“Hannibal.”

Hannibal does not look up at Frederick just yet. He adds his signature to the letter he was writing and folds it over once. He then slides it into an envelope, licks it once, and closes it before writing a name on the outside. After all of this, he finally looks up from his desk. “May I help you, Frederick?”

Frederick’s lips are pressed together in a thin line, and Hannibal simply smiles back at him. He waits for Frederick to break first, he always does.

“You’re being moved,” is Frederick’s curt response. “Are you going to cooperate?”

“Of course, Frederick,” Hannibal replies, standing from his desk and taking up the letter before walking over to the mail slot and carefully sliding the letter though. “Would you be so kind as to give this to the recipient as soon as possible? It’s rather important.”

“After you leave,” Frederick responds, and Hannibal nods once, then sits back down and awaits the guards. He knows that as soon as he’s left, Frederick will rip it open and read the contents. Frederick then signals for the guards to move in.

Hannibal keeps his hands open, not in a fist, so that the guards can attach the handcuffs, but keeps the rest of his body tense enough that when relaxes after the rest of the restraints and jacket are attached, there’s some slack. Not enough for them to notice, but just the right amount he needs.

He is escorted to the transport van, placed in the far back, legs strapped to the seat, mask pulled tight. Three guards occupy the back of the van with him, and there is a specially appointed FBI agent following along behind while another rides alongside the driver. The window on the the back of the van is small, but just large enough that Hannibal can observe the road signs as they pass them, traveling down the road. He waits, patiently, for a certain sign to pass by. It is dead silent in the van, guns locked and loaded on hipbones.

The sign passes by, and thankfully there are no cars behind the agent following them.

Hannibal adjusts his wrist just enough that the paper clip stuck in the loose thread just on the inside on his jumpsuit sleeve slides into his grasp, and he slowly picks the lock of the handcuff inside his straightjacket sleeve.

 

 

_Months prior_

 

Jack looks through the one-way glass at Will Graham, who stares forward, as though he knows Jack is there. He probably does.

“Give it me,” Jack says over his shoulder to Jimmy, who was standing behind him with Brian and brand-new intern Nova. Jimmy nods, pulling out the file they had complied earlier and handing it to Jack for him to read over.

“He’s in good health, Jack,” he sighs, shooting a quick look at Will. “Honestly, when compared to all the records we’ve had access to, he’s in a healthier condition now than ever.”

“What about the scar on his face?”

“It’s an old one. Sharp blade, it wasn’t an accidental wound and was probably a bitch to heal. But it healed well, Jack. A cut that long and deep would need stitches to heal properly. And it did heal well.”

“What about other marks? Any... _other_ injuries?” Jack asks, scanning over the doctor's notes. Jimmy took a deep breath.

“Some bruising, a few scratches. Most likely from the struggle in recapture.”

“The one on his neck, Jimmy.”

“That’s - well, you really want my opinion?”

“That’s why you’re here.”

Jimmy shoots a quick look to Nova and Brian, and takes a deep breath and sighs.

“It’s not-” _how to phrase this delicately?_ “-well, it’s not a bruise caused from abuse or anger, if you, uh, understand that.”

Jack looks back up at Jimmy, unamused, and hands the file back before leaving them to enter the interrogation room itself. Jimmy turned back to other two and shrugged.

Meanwhile, Jack took the seat opposite Will, who, for once, met his eye contact dead-on. He didn’t falter, and Jack didn’t either. He ignores the dark purplish red mark that shows just under the collar of Will’s shirt. He ignores that Hannibal’s file makes note of a similar mark in a similar location.

“Will.”

“Jack.”

Jack takes a deep breath. “Will, can you tell me about what happened? If not, I can find someone you might be more comfortable with, and you can talk to them, okay?”

Will picks up the glass of water he had been given and takes a long, slow sip. He sets it back down, and stares back at Jack. For several long moments, he remains silent.

He finally breaks the silence by stating simply, “I have to see Hannibal.”

“No,” Jack says, shutting that idea down right off the bat. “Any trauma you sustained would be exacerbated by Hannibal’s presence. You’re not going anywhere near him.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“Will. _No,”_ Jack declares firmly. “What is that scar on your face? Where did you get it?”

Will’s eyes go far away for a moment, as though he’s reliving a memory that Jack was not privy to witness. “I don’t have to tell you anything,” he snaps.

Jack lets his tone get sharper. “Will, you have to tell me, or you will be arrested and charged as an accessory.”

“You wouldn’t do that, everyone still thinks I’m dead,” Will states coldly. “You don’t have anything left to lose with me. _I_ don’t have anything left to lose.”

Jack stands his ground, moving his chair just a little closer to Will. _“Will._ You can tell us what happened. You’re - you’re _safe_ now.”

Will picks up the glass of water again, and finishes all of the water inside, then inspects the glass itself. The suddenly, abruptly, without warning, he smashes the glass against the table. Jack flinches, but Will doesn’t, even as little bits of glass embed themselves into his skin. He squeezes a chunk of the glass in his hand as agents rush in to take him out, and the blood drips from his hand down onto the table. He looks back up at Jack, and he looks strangely calm, but something brimming under the surface.

 _“Now_ I’m - I'm _safe?”_ he mutters, more to himself than to Jack, but still loud enough for him to hear. “I wish you’d thought about that before-”

He cuts himself off by biting his lip and looking like he’s near tears, one slides down his face as more blood trickles down onto the now stained steel table. His arms are moved behind his back and handcuffed, and he leaves Jack supporting his head with a hand, and taking a deep breath.

Neither Jack nor the other two agents escorting Will out notice the slow, knowing smile on his face.

 

 

_Back to that very same afternoon, at the very same time_

 

Will opens his eyes as his cell door slides open, and allows Anderson and Gerhardt, the guards from before, attach all of the restraints. The handcuffs, the ankle cuffs, and the face mask.

“Surprised they aren't giving him a jacket,” Gerhardt says, as he locks the handcuffs and puts the key in his pocket.

“Clinically, he’s not crazy, just fucked up, there’s a difference,” Anderson laughs, pulling a little harder on the face mask straps than necessary. Will doesn't respond, just closes his eyes again. He slowly opens them again as fingers are snapped near his ear.

“Listen up,” Anderson commands, having a bit of a power trip. He shows Will the tranquilizer needle in his hand. “This will render you unconscious and unable to move for a while after that. If you do something stupid, I will not hesitate to inject this into the nearest vein. And let me tell you: I’m not a doctor. I’m not that good at finding veins. Now say ‘yes’ if you understand.”

Will blinks, then speaks in a voice that is rough from disuse: “Yes.”

“Oh look, he talks,” Gerhardt remarked, a hand on Will’s shoulder to escort him out. “Honestly, can’t tell if that’s creepier than when he’s silent.”

Will says nothing in response as he is escorted into the back of the van and strapped in. As they pull out of the parking lot, Gerhardt turns from the passenger seat to remind Will of their plan for once they reach his house.

“You’re having your ankle monitor put back on when we get back, then you will walk the borders of your property to set out your boundaries. We clear?”

Will, again, says nothing in response. He closes his eyes and retreats into his mind palace, meeting up again with Hannibal in one of the front rooms. His mind palace has simpler furnishing made of quality material, rather than the extravagant trimmings of Hannibal’s.

“Soon?” he asks. Hannibal’s smile is full of teeth.

“Soon.”

 

 

 

Agent Babcox hums along to the classic rock station in his car, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel. Everything was perfectly normal, and there weren’t any cars on this road, they’d chosen it so that there wouldn’t be a chance of being stuck in traffic with Hannibal Lecter in the back.

Everything was fine, until Babcox looked up and saw a burst of red splashing up against the small window in the back of the transport van.

Instantly, and slightly panicked, he pulled up the carphone and ordered Agent Clayton to remain in the front seat for now and have the driver pull over. Don’t let the driver out of his seat. Give me five minutes to assess the situation.

The van sharply pulls off to side of the road and there’s more splashing on the window, now. Babcox gets out of his car, clutching his Glock and firing a warning shot just outside of the van. “Lecter! Stand down or you will be brought down with force.”

Silence except for bird calls. Taking a deep breath, Anderson slides the door open, gun pointed at the inside. He freezes in horror.

Everyone’s dead. All dead.

Edwards’ face is nothing but a bloody stain, and the other two have pieces ripped out of necks, claw marks on skin, and a broken neck on the last guard. Lecter himself lies facedown in the corner, bleeding out of his skull. _Dead._

Shock taking over, Babcox gets up into the van and climbs over the carnage to point the gun down at Lecter’s corpse in case he’s faking it. Tentatively, he reaches out and grabs the collar of the jumpsuit, and uses a good deal of effort to flip it over.

He stares back into a bloody mess of a face. As though there isn’t anything _left_ to resemble a face.

Babcox is too stunned to notice Hannibal Lecter stand up from the opposite corner in Edwards’ clothes, and see him peel off his removed face as a crude mask. He doesn't see the Bowie knife in his hand, either.

Five minutes soon pass and Clayton hops out the passenger side door to see what's happening in the back, when Hannibal slips out from around the side of the van, just out of his sight of vision.

The sound of a neck snapping causes a bird on the telephone wires to fly away.

Hannibal leaves the corpses in the back and walks calmly back to Babcox’s car, and slides into the driver’s seat. He strains his neck to work a kink out, and then turns the key in the ignition. He drives away from the scene, and just turns back in the opposite direction from whence they came. He types the address for Will’s house into the GPS and hums thoughtfully along to the radio station. It reminds him of Will, whenever Will would drive when they were together and change the station to classic rock.

_“It’s not Bach, but it’s not garbage, Hannibal,” Will chastises lightly as the Rolling Stones’ 'Sympathy for the Devil' plays. “See, I bet you relate to this one.”_

Hannibal smiles to himself.

 

 

“Sit down.”

Will doesn't comply right away, so he’s pushed none-too-gently into his favorite chair by the open outlet in the living room. He makes no sound as he falls back into the seat. Anderson scoffs.

“Seriously, it’s fucking creepy that he doesn't say anything. If it were me in charge, I’d just let him room next to Lecter. Birds of a feather, after all. Back up here yet?”

“Mulford’s upstairs, checking to make sure there’s nothing Graham can hurt himself with. Other guy should be here any minute now,” Gerhardt responds, spitting his chew tobacco in the sink and then rinsing it out. Anderson nods, then looks down at Will again as he lays out the equipment to set up the ankle monitor. Will just stares blankly into the distance.

“Should we not bring up L-E-C-T-E-R in front of him again?” Anderson asks. Gerhardt shrugs.

“He acts like that when you ask him about the weather, he’s just loopy. Here, I’ll ask him something: Graham, what are you thinking about?”

Will blinks slowly blinks, twice. Then he actually responds, for once: “Teacups.”

“Teacups?” Gerhardt confirms, just to be sure. Will nods, as best he can with the restraints.

“And dragons,” he adds, staring back into somewhere far away. “Teacups and dragons.”

Anderson makes a circular motion around his temple to signal ‘crazy, see?’ and turns back to the monitor.

Will keeps his face a blank slate as his fingers slip down under the cushion of the chair, and he tries one of the several paper clips he’s hidden there previously. He picks at the lock on the handcuffs, and keeps his eyes trained on the belt and pant pockets on Anderson.

Gerhardt pinches off a little more chew tobacco and puts it in his mouth, when everyone hears the sound of the gravel crunching outside. Gerhardt looks out the screen door and sees the FBI car breaking to a stop. “Backup’s here,” he calls over his shoulder, already heading out the door. Anderson nods to himself as he undoes the monitor and turns it on, attaching it to the charger when he hears an odd noise from outside. He turns in the direction of the window and strains his vision to see what’s going on outside.

He doesn’t notice that Will's hands are free now, and that he’s carefully reached back and undone the straps to his face mask.

Anderson notes, weirdly, that he doesn't see Gerhardt outside the FBI car, but then again, there’s a porch pillar blocking his vision.

He turns back to look down and see a handcuff snap onto his wrist.

In shock he looks up and is eye-to-eye Will Graham, mask off and mouth curved into the darkest smile he’s ever seen. Real fear settles in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m not a doctor, either,” Will pointed out, in a voice that was incredibly sane and measured and resembled nothing like the Will Graham everyone had seen over the past months. He held up the tranquilizer needle he took from Anderson’s belt, and his smile grew teeth. “But I do know where to find a vein.”

Finally Anderson reacts, reaching out to swing, but Will avoids it and instead wraps his free hand around his neck and squeezes hard enough to stun him. When he lets go, there is no time to react before Will stabs the needle down in the vein twitching on the bottom of his collarbone and injects the entire contents into the vein. It takes a brief moment before his eyes roll back and he collapses onto the ground. Will takes the keys from his belt and unlocks the ankle restraints. He picks the needle back up again and waits beside the staircase, and it isn’t long before Mulford comes back down the stairs.

As soon as his foot hits the bottom step, the needle is stabbed right in the carotid artery, over and over, until the blood spray coats half of the floor, and a bit of it lands on Will’s cheek scar.

Will lets out a satisfied breath and carefully avoids the slippery blood on the floor and walks out the screen door, letting it close behind him. He leans against the wall beside the door and watches as Hannibal, in a bloody FBI outfit, leaves Gerhardt's corpse in the trunk of his own car.

He shouldn’t be smiling so fondly at him.

Hannibal finishes his task and closes the trunk, and walks towards Will. When he’s finally standing in front of Will at long last, Hannibal smiled so brightly, Will felt the way Icarus must have felt right before he lost his wings.

“Took you long enough,” is what comes out of his mouth, though. He can’t resist. Hannibal’s smile doesn't falter.

“I stole a pen from Frederick's desk a month ago, I could have escaped then. I was merely awaiting a message from you.”

Will scoffs, not in a mean-spirited fashion, however. “You’re insufferable, can’t I have just _one_ victory over you?”

“There are no winners between us, Will. We’ve addressed this before.”

Will rolls his eyes, but grins under Hannibal’s warm gaze as he raises an eyebrow. “God, I can’t stand you.”

“You are the grain of sand in an oyster, Will,” Hannibal claims, moving even closer so that they’re very nearly touching. One of his hands rests on the wall beside Will’s left hip and the other rests on the wall beside where Will’s head leans back against the wall. But they’re not touching, not quite yet. “Irritating, obnoxious, but something beautiful is becoming of you.”

Will laughs, and Hannibal almost melts at the sound. It is more beautiful than the violin solo of Paganini’s Caprice No. 1. “Can I be irritating, again?” Will asks, shaking Hannibal from his reverie.

“You are never anything less,” Hannibal declares, just a hairbreadth away from Will’s lips.

Will’s wicked grin is a welcome sight. “Shut the fuck up, okay?”

Hannibal’s eyes seem to gleam at the statement. He tucks two fingers up under Will’s chin, and brings his face up for a gentle kiss.

 _I missed you, I love you, I need you,_ is thought by both men, and they can feel the other thinking the same thing.

When they both finally break for air, Will breathes against Hannibal’s lips, “You’re bleeding.”

Hannibal doesn't respond just yet, instead nuzzling against Will’s cheek scar, smearing the blood onto his own face. “It’s not my blood,” he finally responds.

“Don’t lie to me,” Will scolds, but it’s all in jest.

“...it’s only a few scratches, Will,” Hannibal concedes. “I will-”

“No. Come here,” Will argues, taking Hannibal’s hand and pulling him into the house. They both avoid the bloodstain and the corpse at the foot of the stairs, although Hannibal insists with a squeeze to Will’s hand that they pause so that he can admire his work for a few brief moments. Then they continue up the stairs, up to Will’s bedroom, where Will tells him to sit on the bed for a moment as he goes into the bathroom . Hannibal does so, taking this brief moment of respite to inhale the scent of Will that envelops the entire room.

“The last time I was here,” Hannibal notes. “You had your bed in the living room.”

“I got a little stir-crazy my first two months after they put me back here,” Will’s voice carries through the bathroom door. “Kept moving the bed up and down the stairs so I had something to do. Just happens to be upstairs today.”

Will comes back into the room with a blue plastic cup of water and a worn, yet clean, washcloth. He sits beside Hannibal on the bed, and dunks the washcloth into the cup, soaking it before wring out the excess water. He holds the cup between his knees and looks up at Hannibal expectantly.

“Give me your hand.” It’s a command, not an offer. Hannibal does as he’s told, almost sighing at the bliss of the warm, damp washcloth gently worked over the back of his left hand, over his knuckles. Slow, generous movements.

“Chiyoh brought over suitcases and passports, with IDs and debit cards,” Will says conversationally. “You should change when I finish, we’ll have to buy the tickets at the airport, since I wasn’t sure when we’d be leaving.”

“Of course,” Hannibal responds, regretfully letting his left hand drop to his own thigh so that Will can devote attention to his right hand. “You contacted her?”

“I sent a letter to the address she gave. A few weeks later she showed up here. No sense making a phone trail, they’ll trace my landline once they find out we’re gone.”

“A shame the FBI no longer has the keenest hound in Jack Crawford's pack to track us back down,” Hannibal says in jest, thinking back to that very phrase he wrote on the front of his envelope for Frederick attempt to decipher. Will snorts, rubbing a little harder at the right ring finger’s knuckle to get out a tougher stain.

“Bringing up Jack really kills the mood, you know,” he chided. Hannibal chuckled in response.

“My apologies. I will remember that for the foreseeable future.”

Will rolls his eyes, and makes to let go of Hannibal’s hand so that he can get up and let Hannibal dress. But he’s stopped by Hannibal’s firm grip on his wrist, and then him removing the washcloth from his hand.

“May I?” Hannibal asks, just a bit underneath pleading as he gestures to the blood on Will's face. Will smiles, making the drying blood crack.

“Of course.”

Hannibal reaches out with his other hand to gently caress Will’s jawline on the opposite side of his face. Then he takes the cloth and cleans the blood from Will’s face. Slowly, carefully, like he’s performing a sacrament. It’s hard to not get lost in the easy peace of the moment, and the last thing Will wants to do is pull away.

But they have to go. They really do have to go.

So Will leans in and closes the space between them, sealing unspoken promises with a long kiss, that gets deeper and deeper, with neither of them willing to let go just yet. Hands gripping and pulling at clothes, not all the way, just enough to rankle appearances, and kisses down faces and necks, and over the memories of past marks they've inflicted on each other. Regretfully, he pulls away and smiles as Hannibal leans forward, seemingly chasing an encore.

“Change,” he reminds, standing up from the bed. “I’ll take the suitcases and pack them downstairs. Your suit’s in the closet. Yes, I left out one of the suits for you, now go change.”

Hannibal stares at him with raw adoration and Will fights the blush threatening to spread across his face. “Of course, Will.”

Suddenly, Will remembers something and cringes slightly. “Oh...We need to finish something first. And you shouldn't change into a fresh suit just yet because of it.”

Now Hannibal’s eyes sparkle with gleeful malicious intent. Will’s grin compliments it perfectly.

 

Anderson slowly comes to, but still too weak to actually move just yet. He can barely even open his eyes. There’s voices talking around him, he can’t distinguish them yet. After what feels like hours but amounts to two minutes, he focuses his eyes.

Will Graham runs his thumb along the side of the Bowie knife as he looks down at him, and standing behind him is - _oh, fuuuuuck._

“Don’t you have anything sharper?” Will asks with an exasperated sigh, that turns into a half-laugh when Hannibal goddamn Lecter seems to _nip_ at his fucking neck. “Save that for later, don’t be cute.”

“Unfortunately, I do not have anything sharper. I was rather pressed for time.”

Will sighs, and seems to smirk down at Anderson. “This is going to take a while. It’s going to wear off completely before long if he’s already awake. I don’t need his leg kicking at me while I work.”

Hannibal moves away from Will, and Anderson suddenly loses sight of him when he feels, to his horror a hand grabbing at his leg and pulling up.

Will makes eye contact with Lecter over Anderson, and nods, grinning. “Do it.”

The bone snaps at the knee, and the scream cuts through the silence of the pines.

 

Jack and another team of agents roll up to Will’s house after Clarice Starling washed her hands of the situation. The car that Anderson and Gerhardt took is still there, along with Mulford's.

“You think Graham’s still here?” one of the agents asks Jack. Jack shrugs.

“His ankle monitor was attached a few hours back and it shows no sign of movement or being tampered with. No reason he shouldn’t be here,” Jack snaps, shooing a few stray dogs away from the front porch. They’re eating something, hunks of raw meat, it looks like. Jack and a few other agents push the door open.

There’s blood all over the floor when they step inside. The corpse is still facedown in front of the stairs, and Jack muttered a curse under his breath. He tells the other agents to check the upstairs, and as they leave, he steps into the living room area of the downstairs.

There’s a body there, too. And a small light blinking away.

Fearing the worst, Jack draws a gun and steps towards the body. What he’s confronted with just fuels him with more anger.

It’s Anderson, dead, of course. And all of the flesh from his leg, from the broken bone where it meets the kneecap, is peeled clean off. So clean, it’s as though the bone was washed and dried clean.

And wrapped around the bone is the ankle monitor, blinking away.

Jack crushes a blue plastic cup under his foot in his rage.

 

 

The recovery of Catherine Martin and the slaying of Jame Gumb was displayed with prominence on the news before takeoff, and the image of Clarice Starling with blood spattered across her face was replayed over and over. Hannibal and Will were quiet then, observing how she just refused any interaction from the press and walked away from it all. They discuss her for a while before the seatbelt lights ding softly and takeoff occurs.

 _“Champagne? Eau? Jus d'orange?”_ the stewardess offers with a perfect white smile.

 _“Eau, si’l vous plait,”_ Will responds, accepting the glass of water and relishing the feeling of an actual glass after all these months and Hannibal staring into the scar on his cheek the stewardess does not see from her angle. _“Et du champagne ainsi.”_

The stewardess smiles again and hands him a glass of champagne as well.

 _“Merci beaucoup,”_ Will nods, and she continues on her way. He takes a drink from the flute before passing it over to Hannibal, who is still gazing at him in utter adoration. Hannibal takes a drink after he is offered the flute.

“Will, you could have requested one for yourself.”

“I know,” Will says simply into his water. “I just want to irritate you. Still a grain of sand, not a pearl, _doctor.”_

A hand slides up Will’s thigh, torturously slow, as Hannibal just barely nuzzles at the scar on his face. Will almost chokes on the water as Hannibal’s hand moves even _higher,_ and he can feel the goddamn smirk.

“I never claimed you were not _both,_ Will,” he breathes out against Will’s ear, and suddenly this flight is much too long to bear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, reunited and it feels so good!
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarice finally gets some goddamn appreciation.

_Three weeks later_

 

“Clarice Starling.”

Clarice smiled as she stood up from her seat amongst the few new agents who hadn’t been called up to receive their badges yet. But now she’d been called, so she got to her feet and crossed the stage, her short black pumps clicking against the hardwood flooring.

_Don’t fucking trip, don’t fucking trip, why’d I wear heels, oh yeah to seem taller and put-together, don’t you fucking trip._

The head of the FBI held out the badge and his other hand, smiling at her. She kept her smile on as her fingers finally touched her official badge for the first time, and she gave the man a firm handshake before she turned for the camera.

Everyone had their picture taken shaking the head’s hand while they held their badge, it was standard issue, like the FBI itself.

When Clarice turned, her smile still on and feeling genuine, she was greeted by more flashes than just the ones of the official photographer. At least seven others. She’d had to ignore the press hounding her for weeks. She hadn’t even granted Freddie Lounds an interview, but there had been an article on TattleCrime with the picture of her blood spattered face and the classy headline:

_**Bird in the Hand Worth Two in the Bush!** _

(There hadn’t been a single sign of Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham since the escape. As though they had vanished into thin air.)

She finally turned away from the still-flashing cameras, and kept walking down the stage. Senator Martin stood from her own chair when Clarice approached her. They exchanged a smile and a nod of mutual respect. She turned back to the audience’ applause and the cameras again, and felt the senator drape the Medal of Bravery around her neck. She couldn't help the smile, and even laughed a little as she could pick Ardelia out from the crowd, clapping, grinning, and winking as she gave two thumbs up.

And Clarice found that she wouldn’t mind her face splashed across the tabloids again. At least, not this time.

 

 

Clarice had managed to get away from her old instructors and a few lone wolf reporters at the reception immediately following the ceremony. Seeking solace, she found herself beside the refreshment table, and she was content to eat tiny cube after tiny cube of cheddar cheese. She would have been startled by the hand that suddenly landed on her shoulder and lightly squeezed if it didn’t smell like violet hand cream.

“Special Agent Starling, right? Thought you were a Muenster girl over cheddar,” Ardelia joked when Clarice turned around, a toothpick still between her teeth. Clarice laughed, before putting on a ‘serious’ face.

“Special Agent Mapp, right?” she said back with a straight face. “I left you the brie. Since you’re so classy.”

“Why thank you,” Ardelia fired back, her voice thickly fake and sweet as pie, as she smeared the cheese onto a cracker. “I’m honored to be in the presence of the agent that took down Buffalo Bill.”

Clarice broke character first, laughing hard. Ardelia followed, crumbs flying out of her mouth. While they tried to get their snickering under control, Nova came over, her glass of punch swirling in her plastic up.

“Congrats, ladies, you’re in the system. They got your asses now,” she joked, and they all laughed again. It was good to laugh, to relax. “Hey, you guys want to go out for drinks this weekend? You fucking need ‘em, Clarice.”

“Can’t, my grandma’s in town, I’m showing her around DC all weekend, we’re grabbing dinner. You can join, Clarice. We’re probably just going to that barbeque place we tried back in March.”

Clarice popped another cube of cheese in her mouth before answering. “I really want to, but Senator Martin -”

“Ooooh, someone’s already climbing the ladder, huh?” Ardelia teased, nudging her shoulder playfully. “She’s having a dinner for you?”

“Just - just a small thing, shut up,” Clarice whined, but laughed immediately afterwards. “It’s at some fancy place, probably with tiny portions and names I can’t pronounce.”

“Just say you like brie cheese and pinot noir, that makes you 10% fancier. It’s science,” Nova said. “And if anything it was pitch black when you shot Bill, just say you don’t remember much.”

“You guys are the best,” Clarice said sarcastically, still grinning. “I’ll get drinks next weekend, and I’ll grab dinner with you and your grandma tomorrow, Ardelia. I gotta get going, I’ll see y’all later.”

Nova hugged her goodbye, congratulating her again, and Ardelia kissed her cheek after hugging her. And Clarice could breathe, and feel her muscles relax after being tense for so long. She was in a better place, she could breathe again.

Just before she made out the door of the reception, of course she had to run into Jack Crawford. He looked almost sheepish, like he had tried to sneak in the same time she was sneaking out.

“Starling,” he greeted with a nod. She nodded back. They hadn’t seen each other since she washed her hands of Lecter and Will and left him and Chilton to deal with it. She hadn’t been called back on to assist in the recapture like Nova complained about. Apparently Prurnell had put her Prada down and said “fuck no” in the politest way possible. They didn't want a repeat of what had happened before.

“Wanted to congratulate you,” Jack said, explaining his reasoning for being here. “You did well. You deserve it.”

“Thank you, sir,” she responded, and they both nodded again before allowing the other to move on their separate ways.

 

 

All things considered, Clarice was happy to get back to her apartment. Dinner had been delicious, not so fancy that she wasn’t stumbling over the names of the food or wine. She’d managed to mostly be quiet throughout most of the meal, and the questions she did get from the other guests weren’t too intrusive.

_How did you manage to figure out the location of Gumb?_

_It was an accident, ma'am._

_No, but you put all the pieces together. What helped you get those pieces together?_

Clarice tossed her purse onto the coffee table and peeled off her heels and kicked them at the wall before collapsing on the couch with a deep sigh of relief. She laughed a little. Long damn day. But it was worth it. It was worth it.

She was half asleep on the couch when her phone started ringing. Groaning, she fumbled in her purse and pulled out the phone, answering before checking the number. “Starling,” she said in greeting.

“Well, Clarice,” said a smooth, collected voice that sent chills right down to the base of her spine. “Are the lambs still screaming?”

She sat straight up on the couch. _“Dr. Lecter.”_

“I saw the picture of you accepting your award, it was posted on TattleCrime earlier today. The blue was a nice choice.”

“Where - _where are you,_ Dr. Lecter?”

“Now, Clarice, you know I can’t tell you that,” Lecter fucking _teased_ on the other side of the line. “But rest assured, we are nowhere near Quantico at this present moment, and have no plans to return in the near future. And if you have this number traced, you will sadly discover this is not my phone, nor will we be in this country by the time you hand your phone over.”

Clarice rolled her eyes. She hoped he heard it.

“Now, will you extend us the same courtesy, and not come looking for us, Clarice?”

She played along. “There are no plans for me to be placed on your case, Doctor.”

“Good,” he nearly purred on the other end of the line. Then his voice changed to something almost comforting. “I read the account of what happened, Clarice. I’m certain that your father would be proud of you.”

Clarice had to swallow the lump that gathered in her throat, both at the subject and the fact that it was actually comforting to hear. “What does that have to do with anything, Doctor?”

“Do you think that now that you’ve defeated your enemy, you’ve completed a mission that your father-”

Will’s voice suddenly cut through the air, cutting off Hannibal's words. “God, Hannibal, don’t psychoanalyze her right now, she’s enjoying a moment of peace for once and anyway, we’re busy.”

“I was merely inquiring-”

“Knock it off for once, _dear,_ and help me over here.”

“Of course, Will,” Hannibal’s voice had taken on an even fonder tone. Then he speaks back into the phone. “Clarice, I would love to continue our conversation further, nothing would bring me greater joy. Oh, you should have received a package by now, a celebratory gift for you, I hope you enjoy. However-”

“Dr. Lecter, how do you - ”

“However,” Hannibal pressed, and she could hear his smile with a hint of malice to it. “I must cut our conversation short. We’re having an... _old friend_ for dinner. Goodbye now, Clarice, and take care.”

Her heart seized up. “Dr. Lecter, wait! Where are you?”

The phone line went dead, and she let it dangle limply from her hand. She considers redialing, but he won’t answer her. She knows he won’t.

He had just called to remind her to fulfill a Rumplestitzen promise: he helped her spin straw into gold, she was in debt.

He didn’t ask her for anything, he didn't have to. They had a mutual promise now, not to tell on the other's secrets.

_Wait a minute._

Clarice jumped up out of the couch and sprinted for the door, throwing it open and rushing down the one flight of stairs to the mailboxes. She fumbled with the lock and wrenched it open. There was, in fact, a small package in there. No return address, but her name, and just her name, written out in a familiar script. As though it had been hand delivered.

She took it back upstairs and sat down on her bed to open it. Using a pair of sharp scissors, she slit open the top to reveal peach-colored tissue paper. She sifted through it until she found a small black box and she carefully opened it and lifted out the contents.

It was a necklace. A sterling silver butterfly, with six little silver chains attached to the bottom of it. And dangling from the bottom of each silver chain was a tiny blood-red ruby. It glinted in the light beside her bed.

After a moment’s stunned consideration, Clarice put it back in the box, unwrapped it in paper, and tucked it into her bedside drawer. She changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and climbed back into bed. She was too exhausted to really think about the necklace in the drawer, and she was soon asleep.

When she awoke in the morning, she found that she had had the sweetest dreams she had in a long time: absolutely none.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my planning notes for this fic, I like to write blurbs about what happens generally in the chapter. This one included the phrase "phonecall from weird, annoying murder dads" and I thought you all should know and enjoy that.
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even 'happily ever afters' have epilogues sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, Dr. Cartwell's facecast is Wentworth Miller. Because - because I said so. It's my fanfic, my fantasy. I can dream that Bryan casts him on Hannibal, right?

_Three years later_

 

Clarice yanked her keys out of the ignition of her Chevy, and climbed out of the driver’s seat. She stretched her neck before reaching back into the car for her stained brown canvas bag and then slipped it over her shoulder before turning away and locking the car. And then she walked up the stairs of the BSHCI for the first time in a long time. Pushing the door open, she walked to the receptionist's desk and nodded at Jonathan, who looked up from his computer and smiled at her.

“Agent Starling, long time no see,” he greeted, getting up from his chair. “Dr. Cardwell is in his office, do you need me to take you there?”

“If it’s the same administrator's office as before, then I think I can walk there myself,” Clarice responded with a similar smile. “Thank you, though.”

Jonathan nodded and sat back down at his computer as she continued her walk to the administrator’s office. She passed through a few hallways of cells, walking with her eyes trained forward. She doesn't look as the inhabitants of the cells stare at her, she keeps her eyes trained forward and simply goes on her way. Her black pumps click against the floor, a steady rhythm until she came to the administrator's office. She knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Clarice opened the door and stepped inside the office, closing the door behind her as she did so. Dr. Cartwell got up from his chair and walked around his desk in order to shake her hand.

“Special Agent Starling,” he greeted with a strong handshake that Clarice returned. “I have to say, it’s an honor to meet you. Your accomplishments are extraordinary for an agent your age.”

“Thank you, sir,” she smiled. “I appreciate it.”

“Please, sit,” he offered, and she nodded, taking the chair across from his desk while he went back to his own desk and chair. “Do you mind filling out a few forms again? My secretary misplaced some.”

“Not at all,” she replied, taking out her pen and already reading over the forms. Dr. Cartwell nodded and began sifting through the files on the left side of his desk.

“I apologize for this, but I put in new restrictions when I came into this position and Maxwell is a rather violent patient, I have to take all the precautions possible. I’m sure he doesn’t phase you much, though, you've consulted with - well, you've consulted with several criminals and patients in previous years. You, uh, you’ve seen a lot already, haven't you?”

“More than enough,” Clarice answered, smiling, but it was clearly fake. Dr. Cartwell pushed his glasses further back on his nose as he read over Maxwell’s file.

“I do have to say that I’m glad you finally decided to return to the BSHCI for a consultation. I lifted your ban as soon as I arrived, however. And that was three years ago, after Dr. Chilton had to retire after his-” Dr. Cartwell paused, chewing on his lip and his words before finishing with an awkward, _“-incident._ ”

 

 

_**Three years prior** _

 

 

“...and take care,” Hannibal finished, smiling at Clarice’s demanding words and questions as he hung up the corded phone in the kitchen area. Will had just finished unpacking all of their necessary sterile materials and was now watching the last bits of the Caribbean sunset as it dipped below the ocean. They shared a quick smile that was more felt than seen in the dying light, and Hannibal turned away first. Will walked over to the counter and pulled the top off of a decanter of cognac and filled two glasses, then lifted one to his lips and waited. It was almost fully dark in the room now, and it was dead silent. Not even the sounds of breathing could be heard.

A key was inserted into the lock and the door was pushed open, and Will took a sip of the drink. He was unnoticed as Frederick Chilton shut the door and relocked it.

It wasn’t until the nearest light switch was turned on,  and he turn around that he noticed Will frowning down into his glass of cognac as the light over the kitchen area was quickly replacing any natural light in the room.

“This tastes like lighter fluid, it’s disgusting,” he muttered, seeming to himself. Then he looked up with a smile that was pure unadulterated malice. “But fitting.”

The suitcase clattered to the ground and the clasp sprang open, but Will ignored that and the stunned, horrified expression on Frederick’s face. Instead, he nudged the other glass of cognac to the edge of the counter and gestured down at it.

“If I were you, Frederick, I would drink that.”

Frederick’s response was usually to freeze, rather than flight or fight. And this was still true now, being too stunned to think of pretty much anything else to do. At any rate, it was evident that he wasn’t going to accept the drink. Will shrugged, raising an eyebrow as he forced down another sip of the cognac. “Suit yourself,” he sighed, straightening his posture from where he was leaning against the counter. He tilted his head to the side, almost like the way a snake does, and he smiled again as Hannibal came into his field of vision, his silent footsteps unnoticed by Frederick. The knife glinted in his hand and Hannibal would later swear it reflected in Will’s eyes.

“Like I said, Frederick,” Will stated, turning his head to the other side now, and trying not to let a laugh escape. “Suit yourself. Just know that at least I _offered_ you an anesthetic.”

Hannibal’s hand darted out and killed the lightswitch, moving in between heartbeats.

 

 

“I mean, _honestly,”_ Dr. Cartwell sighed, leaning back in his chair. “What kind of organ harvesters take the _appendix?_ And the _spleen?_ It’s a miracle he’s still alive.”

Clarice pursed her lips slightly, pressing her pen hard enough against the paper that the ink bled through. “Ones that think they’re being funny by taking useless organs,” she muttered. Dr. Cartwell shrugged, accepting the papers she pushed across the table to him. He read them over when she could tell a question was just on the tip of his tongue.

He couldn't resist. “I heard Guinness called, Agent Starling. Already a record breaker, huh?”

Clarice forced out a smile. “Yes, sir.”

“It’s impressive, I’m not joshing you, ma’am. Female FBI agent with the most kills under her belt, right? What number are you up to now?”

Her eyes get a little hard, but she she blinks and her steel-gray eyes soften again. “Thirteen, sir. That _is_ counting Jame Gumb.”

Dr. Cartwell grinned over the page he was scanning. “Well, damn, Agent Starling. You’re the nuclear option, aren’t you?”

Clarice found it a little easier to smile back this time as she shifted in her chair. “Yes, sir. It’s a blessing and a - a _curse,_ I would say.”

Dr. Cartwell gestured over to Clarice, more so than he usually did when he talked with his hands. His smile was one of genuine wonder, like he couldn’t believe the woman in front of him had thirteen notches on her gun and had stared both of the FBI’s most wanted serial killers in the eye and not flinched. “You’ve, uh, you’ve got a little devil on your shoulder, don’t you?” he asked, his eyes turning back to his forms again

Clarice touched her sternum through her lavender-colored blouse, and felt the silver butterfly necklace with the six red rubies on delicate chains rise and fall along with her heartbeat.

“Actually,” she corrected, speaking more to herself than Dr. Cartwell in front of her. “I have two.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done, my dearest readers! Our story is now at an end, and left a little ambiguous for you all to digest.
> 
> HOWEVER....
> 
> I do have an idea for a sequel. If y'all are interested, I'll start on it a little faster than planned. It'll probably be a while, as I have to finish out the semester at college. Damn English major!
> 
> I really enjoyed this piece, guys. It was fun for me to write and dream about, and I hope it was fun to read for all of you! And, as always:
> 
> Please, please leave all the comments and kudos you like! I love responding to them!
> 
> Come visit me and find ways to send me love and support (and coffees!!! pretty please, it really helps me out!) on [Tumblr](http://somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds.tumblr.com)!


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